Volume 104 Issue 10

The Fordham Ram Serving The Fordham University Community Since 1918 Volume 104, Issue 10

TheFordhamRam.com

April 13, 2022

USG Approves Academic Transparency Proposal

USG Fails to Disclose Prior Sanctions Against Candidates

By EMMA KIM

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

By SEBASTIAN DIAZ FEATURES EDITOR

With United Student Government (USG) elections occuring this week, The Fordham Ram conducted an investigation into USG election processes which uncovered a lack of transparency about candidates who break the organization’s lengthy rules while campaigning, raising questions about why USG does not disclose important information to voters.

The investigation discovered that in the 2021 USG election cycle, its Elections Commission placed sanctions on several candidates then-running for office after an internal investigation into misconduct. USG’s standard operating procedure is not to publish or share any information about such investigations’ results. It neither announces which candidates have been sanctioned for breaking its rules, nor does it announce which sanctions it has ordered, leaving voters in the dark as several of the candidates are SEE SANCTIONS, PAGE 3

COURTESY OF FORDHAM USG

Santiago Vidal, FCRH ’24, and Ava Coogan, FCRH ’25, won the executive ticket election for the 2022-23 school year.

Vidal and Coogan Win USG Presidential Election

By ISABEL DANZIS NEWS EDITOR

United Student Government (USG) elections began on April 11 and concluded on April 12.

Following the close of the election period, the votes concluded that Santiago Vidal, FCRH ’24, and Ava Coogan FCRH ’25, will serve as executive president and executive vice president for the 2022-23 academic year.

As per their platform, Vidal and Coogan hope to improve student recruitment. Much of Fordham’s student body comes from the tri-state area; the pair hopes to expand that reach by addressing the needs of specific minority students on campus.

They additionally pledge to rebuild trust between USG and the student body by including the latter in USG’s decisionmaking process and improving

communication between the two entities.

Internally, Vidal and Coogan intend to create Student Success policy groups. These groups would feature a group of senators specifically dedicated to helping students with academic and mental health issues. Additionally, within their general goal of improving communication between SEE ELECTION, PAGE 4

Fordham Considers Mandating A Second Booster Shot

By GRACE GALBREATH CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

FGSW members celebrate in the McShane Student Center after their victory in the NLRB vote.

Fordham Graduate Student Work Union Wins Vote

By ISABEL DANZIS NEWS EDITOR

On April 7, Fordham’s Graduate Student Workers (FGSW) voted 229-15 in favor of the creation of a union during a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) vote. The union

is created in collaboration with the Communications Workers of America.

During a NLRB vote, workers participate in a formal voting process to approve a union or not. If the majority of votes go in favor of the union, the board

will officially recognize the union.

By FGSW’s vote going in their favor, the graduate student union will now be recognized by the board as an official and exclusive bargaining unit. The vote was held in the Rose Hill commons in SEE UNION, PAGE 5

Fordham may mandate an additional COVID-19 booster dose for eligible students, staff and faculty beginning September 2022. The shot has not yet been made mandatory, but the weekly Five Things COVID-19 update released to the Fordham community on April 1 mentioned the future possibility of mandating said vaccine for eligible individuals.

Keith Eldredge, assistant vice president and dean of Student Services has commented on the issue, stating: “At this time, we are not requiring an additional booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Referring to the April 1 email, Eldredge explained that by including informaSEE BOOSTER, PAGE 5

Fordham’s United Student Government (USG) Senate has approved a proposal that would add midterm transparency to the faculty handbook. If approved by the Faculty Senate, faculty would have to notify students of their midterm grades two weeks before the pass/fail deadline. The proposal is sponsored by Vice President of Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH), Jonathan Eng, FCRH ’23.

“This proposal was something that I decided to work on as I was running for election of VP of FCRH last year. With the shifting modalities both last year and this year, many students experienced classes where communication on their grades was unclear or non-existent,” said Eng. Eng said that STEM students in particular face this disadvantage because many of their classes are graded on a curve at the end of the semester. When the curve and perspective grade fail to be communicated to students, the lack of transparency can cause increased stress.

“In our proposal we further include several student testimonials regarding their experience with grade transparency,” said Eng. “This proposal is meant to enter into a dialogue and discussion with faculty members.

Many students want to be able to reach out and request their current grade from a professor but don’t feel confident enough to do so. Some student groups are even more vulnerable to this lack of empowerment,” said Eng. “By opening this dialogue with professors, we aim to share the student voice and to uplift the will and perspective of students that wouldn’t be able to do so themselves.”

SEE PROPOSAL, PAGE 4

in this issue

Opinion

Page 10

Culture

Page 14

New Bills Stadium: A Much Needed Win for Upstate New Yorkers

There’s an r/place for Everyone

Sports

Page 20

Baseball Swept Massachusetts, Falls Aganist Columbia

NEWS

Page 2

PUBLIC SAFETY BRIEFS April 7 Larkin Hall 1:00 p.m.

A faculty member contacted Public Safety and reported he was missing a package that the USPS reported as being delivered. The package, with a listed value of $5,000, was still missing after an extensive search. Investigators from Public Safety referred the case to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

April 9 Arthur Ave. 1:40 a.m.

A student reported he was assaulted by three males on Arthur Avenue near 7/11 after a verbal exchange. The student suffered a scratch and declined medical attention. He declined an NYPD response. Investigators from Public Safety are following up with the student.

April 10 Walsh Hall Gate 12:15 p.m.

The security officer assigned to Bathgate Avenue observed a male jump over the fence in the vicinity of Walsh Hall gate. The male was observed on Edward’s Parade and was identified as a student.

He stated that he forgot his identification and apologized for jumping the fence.

April 10 Hoffman St. 5:00 p.m.

A student reported that his vehicle’s tires had been slashed on numerous occasions on his personal vehicle parked on Hoffman St. & 189th St. He was transported to the 48th Precinct to file a police report.

Follow us on Twitter! @TheFordhamRam

April 13, 2022

Student Life Council Discusses Campus Center Hub

By MICHELA FAHY By ISABEL DANZIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER NEWS EDITOR

The monthly Student Life Council (SLC) meeting was held on April 6 and focused on the theme of the Campus Center Hub. The meeting featured discussions about student life with representatives from various student clubs, organizations, government as well as academic offices, Office of Student Involvement, administration and Residential Life.

The meeting was led by Arianna Chen, FCRH ’22, executive vice president of Fordham’s United Student Government (USG).

The meeting began with public agenda items. Jamie Serruto, FCRH ’24, mentioned that he had received student complaints about some of the façade construction occurring in some of the resident halls. He relayed that some students have been unable to open their windows because of the construction and have noted that noisy construction occurs when they are trying to sleep. Serruto additionally stated that some students have wondered why the air conditioning systems in resident halls have not been turned on yet.

Colin Wexler, GSB ’22, responded to Serruto stating that the air conditioners only get turned on when the outside temperature reaches a certain point and that due to the colder March weather, air conditioners have not been turned on yet. As for the construction, Wexler referred Serruto to Residential Life.

The meeting then moved to the main topic of the meeting, the Campus Center Hub. Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., vice provost, and professor Dawn Lerman, Ph.D., attended the meeting to discuss a new app that would serve as the new “hub” of student life. According to Crystal, having a platform that would allow students to find answers to their questions in one location would decrease the student’s concerns about getting shuffled around from department to department. The new hub would also include personalized student information such as grades, financial aid information, student health appointments, attendance, academic holds, etc.

It would also allow students to search for resources regarding different campus functions. According to Crystal, this system is most comparable to the SSC navigate system; however, the new

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Student Life Council meets monthly with different organizations to discuss various things ocurring on Fordham’s campus.

Campus Center Hub would work for all parts of the university, not just academic advising. Additionally, this new program would have the ability to interface with existing platforms like Handshake, DegreeWorks and Blackboard. The hub is in the early stages of development and can be modified. Crystal and Lerman came to the meeting seeking feedback from students and faculty on aspects they should add or take away from the program.

Most students expressed excitement about the new hub. Many agreed with the sentiment that having a place where all questions could be answered would be helpful. Audrey Felton, FCRH ’22, USG’s vice president of operations, proposed the addition of a monthly calendar where students could see all club, athletic, academic and other events happening on campus.

Thomas Reuter, FCRH ’22, president of USG, proposed looking into synching the hub with Google Calendar. Sarah Goldstein, FCRH ’23, noted concern that the hub may be difficult for upperclassmen to adjust to. She stated that when Fordham’s website changed its layout during summer 2021, many returning students cited difficulty navigating it. Christopher Rodgers, dean of students, noted that the Campus Center Hub may make the idea of “co-curricular transcripts” possible.

The discussion then moved to the McShane Center, providing updates on the ongoing construction.

Stephen Clarke, assistant director for campus center operations, opened by saying that the Ram Fit Center had recently been approved to increase its capacity to 280 people. Additionally, there is currently work being done to remove the weather wall inbetween the renovated gym and the old one. According to Clarke, work is being done to make sure the fire alarms in both sections are synchronized, which must be done before the wall is removed.

A question was asked about student reservations to use the Ram Fit Center and if the new capacity limit could signal the end of the reservation system. Clarke referred the student to Athletics and Public Safety, stating that they were the ones who make decisions regarding the reservation system.

“This change in capacity helps that conversation,” said Clarke on the reservation system.

Additionally, construction in the campus center is fully in phase two. The arcade connecting the McShane Center to the McGinley center is expected to be completed around fall 2023. Alex Chavez, GSB ’23, USG’s vice president of finance and budgets, asked Clarke if there would be more commuter lockers than in the McGinley Center. Clarke responded that there will be new electronic commuter lockers in the new campus center and that he had requested more than were originally in the McGinley Center; however, the

amount of lockers that can actually be installed is dictated by physical space.

In terms of COVID-19, Rodgers noted success in re-entry testing following Spring Break. He said that the university was expecting more positive cases than actually occurred and a majority of the students complied with the deadline.

“Compliance has been great.

Tremendous credit to students for meeting the deadline,” said Rodgers. Because of the low numbers of positive tests following spring break, Rodgers said that reentry testing post-Easter break is not required. He did also mention that this could be revised given COVID-19 trends. All currently active COVID-19 cases have been able to fit in Finlay Garden level, and the Fordham off-campus isolation spaces have been closed.

Charles Clency, assistant dean of students and director of residence life, stated that anyone that has a valid COVID-19 vaccination record should be able to enter campus. Overnight guests in residence halls, which are currently prohibited, are expected to return in the fall semester. Clency said that residential life is prepared to comply with that policy to bring back guests as soon as the university approves it.

The meeting concluded with graduating seniors saying goodbye and acknowledging that the next SLC meeting will be run by newly elected student leadership.

This Week at Fordham Thursday April 14

Wednesday April 20

Thursday April 21

Saturday April 23

Saturday April 23

Easter Break Begins

Fordham’s Crochet Collective

Fordham’s Our Story

Bronx Celebration Day

ACE x FUPAC Formal

Fordham University April 14-April 18

Dealy 115 7-9 p.m.

Bepler Commons 7-9 p.m.

Fordham Plaza 12-4 p.m.

MichaelAngelo’s 9pm

Fordham University will be on recess from April 14 to April 18 for Easter Break. The university will be closed with limited dining operation hours for students who are on break stay during that time.

Come join Fordham’s new club to learn how to crochet on Wednesday, April 20 from 7-9 p.m. in Dealy 115.

No experience is needed to attend! All that is required is a good attitude.

Fordham’s Our Story mainstage event will take place on Thursday, April 21 from 7-9 p.m. in Faber Hall’s Bepler Commons. Come to the event to hear stories from your fellow Fordham students.

Volunteer with Pedro Arrupe Volunteers and StriveHigher during Fordham Club’s Bronx Celebration Day. The event focuses on connecting and celebrating the Belmont community.

ACE and FUPAC will be hosting a formal on Saturday, April 23. Pizza and beverages will be provided along with different festivities. All are welcomed to come. RSVP is required for the event.

NEWS

April 13, 2022

Page 3

Sanctions Against USG Candidates Revealed FROM SANCTIONS, PAGE 1

now running for USG offices in the 2022 election cycle.

“As we expressed to the candidates before the election began,” said current USG Executive President Thomas Reuter, FCRH ’22, who was the executive vice president of USG at Rose Hill at the time and member of this cycle’s Election Commission.

“Complaints, investigations and sanctions are entirely private.

We will not broadcast the result of an investigation to anyone,” Reuter explained. This policy extends to all investigations and is not specific to the investigation from April 2021, as confirmed by Reuter.

The sanctions, placed on the candidates in April 2021, prohibited several USG candidates from campaigning for 24 hours between April 13 and April 14.

According to several students interviewed by the Ram, the sanctions were put in place after someone complained to USG election officials about a series of text messages shared in a group of at least 11 USG senators, executive board members and committee members that disparaged another member of USG. The name of the group chat in which the messages

were sent was also changed to various insulting phrases about said candidate. The Ram has both seen and verified these messages with multiple people involved in the group chat, but has chosen not to publish them because they are defamatory.

According to the United Student Government Election Code, campaign suspensions lasting 24 hours are penalties for misconduct the Commission deems to be a Major Infraction. As the code states, “A Major Infraction has significant material impact on the Election and causes severe harm to the integrity of the election.”

A later rule described in the code reads: “A candidate will be disqualified immediately for the use of racial, sexual, or religious, or any form of discrimination towards another candidate.”

Following the sanctions and numerous meetings with the disparaged student, the former Assistant Dean for Student Involvement Cody Arcuri and the Elections Commission in April 2021 the commission ultimately decided to sanction the candidates involved.

Neither officials involved in running the 2021 USG elections, nor USG officials then-serving informed the student body about

the objectionable behavior or the sanctions at the time.

The Fordham Ram has confirmed that multiple of the sanctioned students are up for election during the current 2022 cycle.

The only public information available to students was in one of the Ram’s regular USG columns, published April 21, 2021. The article cited Maggie Tattersfield, FCRH ’22, and vice president of Sustainability at the time, who had publicly brought up concerns of broken election code by a third of the USG Senate.

As the article reads: “Tattersfield motioned for a reevaluation of the class of 2024 Senate Elections. The motion did not get a second, nor did it pass as the rest of the senate felt that the action taken within the Election Commission was enough.” No discussion at the meeting outright revealed what the cause for concern was.

Instead, the meeting revealed that the commission had placed campaigning sanctions on selected, unspecified candidates for an unspecified amount of time that totaled between 12 and 24 hours.

The investigation and its results have become an open secret within USG proceedings. In her column last week, the Ram’s USG Columnist mentioned the discussion of “last year’s scandal” at the USG weekly meeting. At April 7th’s Meet-the-Candidates USG event, an audience member asked a candidate a question about transparency, clearly hinting at a prior instance.

The Ram spoke to Fordham students who feel it is important for USG to be transparent to the community it is elected to represent.

Indra Ramsaywak, FCRH ’23, told the Ram that “the voting body should have access to info about future candidates in order

to make an informed decision.”

Multiple other students have commented on the issues, including Maya Giardina, FCRH ’24, who said, “I don’t know anything about USG, but if I were to vote, I would want to be as informed as possible.”

Payton Hunt, FCRH ’24, said “if [candidates] are committing misconduct in a college with no stake whatsoever, then it’s very reflective of a poor political system and poor future candidates.”

By withholding information concerning electoral misconduct, many students feel they do not have all the information necessary to make an informed decision on election day.

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

Sanctions were placed on current candidates last election cycle.

USG Sustainability Committee Celebrates Earth Week

By SAMANTHA MINEAR ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

From April 4-12, the United Student Government (USG) Sustainability Committee held a series of events celebrating Earth Week. Working in partnership with a number of the university’s climate and sustainability organizations, the committee held five dedicated events over the course of the past week to encourage students to make more earth-healthy decisions in their daily lives.

“Climate change is only be-

coming more and more serious,” said Liz Shim, FCRH ’23, vice president of sustainability for USG. The Sustainability Committee has ramped up their efforts in spreading climate awareness this year, especially after the events of first semester, when Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc on New York. “One day, it’s 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but the following day it can drop below 32 degrees,” said Shim.

Climate change is getting worse.

The weather seen today is not the weather seen five or 10 years ago.

On top of varying and extreme temperatures, “storms are becoming stronger and more frequent,” said Shim. The destruction of Walsh Library and damage to the McGinley club suites after severe flooding is representative of how unexpected these dramatic weather changes are, especially for a city like New York. That is why events like Earth Week are so important — to remind students that this issue is not disappearing any time soon.

The week started with the committee’s Plant-A-Seed pro-

COURTESY OF THE USG SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE

Students participate in the Sustainability Committee’s tote bag painting event outside of Loyola Hall.

gram, which encouraged students to stop by Dealy Hall and grab their own potted plant to grow themselves. Doing this “[fosters] the students’ empathy for nature by having them grow their own plants,” said Shim. In addition, the responsibility of having a plant of one’s own also promotes environmental awareness, which can help to change the tide of the current climate crisis.

On Tuesday, Olivia Greenspan, author of “A Kid’s Book about Climate Change” visited the university to discuss the importance of climate change and instill a message about the importance of environmental awareness in everyone, regardless of age. “It’s important to teach the younger generations about climate change because eventually, the responsibility of fighting climate change will be left to them,” said Shim, citing the event was a success.

Wednesday’s event, which was a field day on Edward’s Parade, ended up being rescheduled for the following Monday, April 11, because of weather. Despite that, it had a tremendous turnout; the committee continued the event for an extra hour because people were eager to participate in the beautiful spring weather. In conjunction with the Outdoors Club at Fordham, volleyball nets were set up and frisbees were passed out to students. Dozens of participants relished in New York’s first warm day in a long time, marking the official arrival of spring and a re-established love for the outdoors.

Thursday’s event was a popup with Fordham Flea and Spes Nova. It was “students’ favorite recurring event,” said Shim.

The committee was able to raise over $200 for an organization that fights climate change or “works towards environmental revitalization in underprivileged communities.” With everything priced at five dollars or less, the event attracted students to enjoy the thrifting-adjacent event.

“The goal of this event was to minimize student waste and offer students affordable, secondhand clothing,” said Shim. Fordham Flea is a well-known resource on campus allowing students to give their clothing a new home within the community. Spes Nova specializes in selling local artisan goods while ensuring ethical consumerism and profit.

The last event was a crowd favorite. Friday’s Paint-A-ToteBag event encouraged students to nurture their creative juices.

The Sustainability Committee passed out tote bags to students and supplied them with paint, brushes and plenty of glitter. “I was so proud to see such great designs,” said Shim, reflecting on the success of the event.

Ironically, the events produced a lot of litter, because students failed to clean up after themselves. For subsequent Sustainability Week and Earth Week events, the committee plans on forewarning students about the waste they produce while participating, and to be more conscious of their ecological footprints. Nevertheless, Earth Week was a huge celebration of the hard work of the Sustainability Committee and its partnering organizations, which brought together a fantastic series of events to honor the return of spring and celebrate the earth.

NEWS

Page 4

April 13, 2022

New Academic Transparency Proposal to Help STEM Students FROM PROPOSAL, PAGE 1

Eng also believes that both faculty and students will benefit from this policy.

“Requiring that professors report grades increases student’s opinions on the learning experience of faculty and subsequently boosts RateMyProfessor and SEEQ evaluations,” said Eng. Alex Tamsi, FCRH ’24, feels that class size can also determine a professor’s grading time.

“My professors almost always return our grades, but in big classes with around 30 students, sometimes those grades come late or without feedback.

I think that the proposal is a good idea because it allows students to both be aware of and act on their academic performance before the deadline,” said Tamsi.

The withdrawal deadline occurs the 14th week of the 15-

week semester, so students should have a better idea of their final course grade with the exceptions of any final project and examination, said Eng. Before the proposal was approved by FCRH Dean’s Council and then the USG Senate, it was brought before Maura Mast, dean of FCRH. Eng said a possible issue that was discussed was instituting it into the faculty handbook.

Even if the proposal was included, there is not a way to guarantee that the faculty would actually report grades by the withdrawal deadline.

Eng said that when he and Gaby Simporios, FCRH ’24, who is the chair of the STEM subcommittee on the FCRH Dean's Council, brought the proposal to the Faculty Senate on Thursday, they wanted to keep the aforementioned dis-

cussion in mind because the department chairs have the ability to reach out to the faculty in their department and request that.

The proposal was not approved by the Faculty Senate at this meeting, but Eng and Simporios are going to continue to do more in depth research to present at the next meeting with them.

While many students wanted an expansion to pass/fail, Eng feels that this proposal is a right step towards more transparent communication.

“Fordham prides itself on its unique commitment to cura personalis, and the care and development of each student to an extent that other universities are unable to emulate.

To truly uphold this principle, academically, there needs to be transparency in communication and grade reporting,” said Eng.

COURTESY OF PIA FISCHETTI/ THE FORDHAM RAM

This transparency proposal will help all students.

USG Announces Winners of Elections for the 2022-23 Academic Year FROM ELECTION, PAGE 1

USG and the student body, the pair plan to rework the communications committee.

Vidal and Coogan will also live stream USG meetings, send invites for all USG meetings to all students and centralize information from all university departments within USG. Within the senate, they hope to develop “non-voting delegates” for organizations on campus such as campus ministry, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL).

The pair will place an emphasis on student academic achievement by creating class spotlights from different de-

Cole Mullins, FCRH ’24.

Briana Al-Omoush, FCRH ’24.

partments, supporting students in situations of nearly failing classes and opening up SEEQ class evaluations to the public.

For diversity and inclusion initiatives, Vidal and Coogan aim to advocate for more financial aid for minorities and create more initiatives to reach out to the Bronx community.

The pair also is looking to expand food options in the Marketplace and create more mental health resources for students during exam seasons. Lastly, the pair places an emphasis on sustainability by reducing the amount of waste in the Marketplace and looking for opportunities to recycle unused meal swipes to local homeless shelters.

Jillian Choy, GSB ’24.

Gaby Simporios, FCRH ’24.

Vidal is the first international student to serve as executive president and has served on USG’s senate for the past two years.

Coogan has no previous USG experience.

The rest of the executive board of the 2022-23 academic year will be the following: Cole Mullins, FCRH ’24, will serve as vice president of student life.

Jillian Choy, GSB ’24, is the new vice president of club operations.

Alexander Chavez, GSB ’23, will be the vice president of finance and budget.

Liz Shim, FCRH ’23, is the vice president of the sustainability committee.

Briana Al-Omoush, FCRH ’24, will be the vice president of diversity and inclusion.

Gaby Simporios, FCRH ’24, was elected as the vice president of Fordham College Rose Hill (FCRH) dean’s council For the Gabelli School of Business (GSB) dean’s council, Natalia Kimmelshue, GSB ’23, will serve as vice president.

Farah Elrakhawi, FCRH ’24, will serve as vice president of health and safety.

Carley Walker, GSB ’25, won the vote for vice president of communications and marketing.

USG’s senate for the 2022-23 school year includes: Andrew Falduto, FCRH ’23,

Alexander Chavez, GSB ’23.

Natalia Kimmelshue, GSB ’23.

Keegan Roeder, FCRH ’23, and Maya Dominguez, FCRH ’23 as Fordham College Rose Hill’s senators for the class of 2023.

Sean Power, FCRH ’24, Brian Inguanti, FCRH ’24, and Jaime Serruto, FCRH ’24, serving as senators for FCRH’s class of 2024.

Maria Narvaez, GSB ’24, who will represent the class of 2024 on the GSB senate.

FCRH’s senate for the class of 2025, Andy Diaz, FCRH ’25, Molly Ewing, FCRH ’25, and Daniel Sponseller, FCRH ’25, will serve as senators. Tiberius Benaissa, GSB ’25, and Jack Glynn, GSB ’25, will be on the GSB senate for the class of 2025.

Liz Shim, FCRH ’23.

Carley Walker, GSB ’25.

Farah Elrakhawi, FCRH ’24.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF FORDHAM USG

NEWS

April 13, 2022

Page 5

Graduate Student Workers Union Wins NLRB Vote 229-15 for what this holds in store for us and the future for having a union,” said Amanda Esau, a member of FGSW’s organizing committee.

For other members, this is a positive indication for the union because it shows unity among graduate student workers as well as wide-spread support.

“We’re in a really strong position to go into bargaining with the university, and we have the support of a vast majority of graduate student workers. This is not just a few people, it’s a significant number of people.

It means we have the support of most of the graduate student population,” said Amal Zaman, another member of FGSW’s organizing committee at the cel-

ebration after the vote’s announcement.

“I’m very excited. It’s been quite a while coming and a lot of work to get us there.

At this point, I’m very, very pumped to have a clear mandate from the graduate student employee body, that we want a union and that we want a seat at the table to decide our own working conditions, with the university, instead of just asking them for what we need, and have them ignore us as they often do when we are individuals,” said Micheal Au-Mullaney, a member of FGSW’s organizing committee.

For Mark Himmelstein, a member and organizer of the FGSW, the results of the vote indicate the union’s strength in terms of appealing to the graduate student population, as well as the effectiveness of the union’s internal organization.

“For me, it’s exciting. It shows the overwhelming support for the graduate students at Fordham, it was such a huge win, 229 to 15, the effectiveness of the organizers, of all my colleagues and all unity we have in trying to make better lives for ourselves and have our values as graduate student workers COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM recognized,” said Himmelstein.

Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., proFGSW members gather outside the student center to vote to certify the union. vost and senior vice president FROM UNION, PAGE 1

the McShane Center.

After voting concluded, members of FGSW waited in the student center’s gallery for organizers to come down and announce the result.

The announcement of the final vote count was met with cheers from the group.

For many in FGSW, this marks a huge accomplishment and positive step in the union’s development.

“Euphoric is an understatement for how I feel. It’s surreal. After months and months of hard work, late nights, lots of meetings, just labor off the clock. It all came to the result we wanted, a union. Really excited

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Celebrations commenced following the announcement of the 229-15 victory. for academic affairs, issued a statement to the Fordham community regarding the election following the vote on April 7. Jacobs said in the statement that: “The University is pleased that the process played out fairly: We accept the results of the vote and respect the student workers’ decision. We are proud of members of the University community who engaged in respectful and constructive conversation with one another and with the administration.”

Jacobs also said that negotiations between the university and the union will likely begin occurring in the upcoming months. According to Jacobs, “the university is committed to

working with the union and its members in good faith.”

The FGSW is currently working on deciding what the union’s next steps will be; however, nothing has been solidified yet.

“No concrete decisions have been made. We’re in celebration mode right now, we’re just really thrilled about this victory.

We know broadly what we want to negotiate for, we want better compensation, we want better protections, we want a voice in our livelihoods, but there's nothing really firm or concrete in terms of decisions about the organizational structure moving forward or bargaining positions,” said Himmelstein.

Fordham Considers Mandating Second Booster for Fall 2022 FROM BOOSTER, PAGE 1

tion about the possibility of a second booster vaccine, the email was meant to provide accurate, updated COVID-19 information and to give members of the Fordham community advanced notice due to the unpredictability of the pandemic.

Eldredge explained that Fordham policies are constantly changing in accordance with updated COVID-19 policies. As a result, the decision to mandate an additional COVID-19 booster dose for eligible students, staff and faculty will be made following the “... advice of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the New York City and state Departments of Health and an epidemiologist under contract to the University.”

Currently, the second booster is only available for those who have received the full vaccine series and are also immunocompromised or fall within certain age categories deemed “at risk.” According to Eldredge, Fordham will seriously consider mandating the second booster when it is made available to all people who have completed the vaccine series.

Until it is available for everyone, not just select age categories, Fordham cannot make a concrete decision on the matter.

Fordham students seem to be aware of the possibility of a required second booster and the majority are willing to complete the vaccine series if it becomes mandated. “Yeah I’m absolutely on board. I 100% would get [the second booster],” said Angela Torricella, FCRH ’23.

Several other students, such as Sarah Hurbano, FCRH ’25, echoed her claims, saying, “I think mandating it would be awesome, because getting COVID-19 is not good and no one wants to spend a week quarantining in the Finlay basement.” This sentiment remained a common opinion among the expanse of the Rose Hill student body.

Agreement to receive a second booster, if mandated, garnered widespread support among most Fordham University students. Students seemed to be in consensus that they would rather receive a second booster vaccine due to a mandate by Fordham University, over frequently administered PCR tests.

Some other students even claimed they would receive the vaccine as long as it ensured they did not have to begin wearing masks again. Additionally, others claimed they would get the vaccine in order to return to campus next year.

Noah Willsey, FCRH ’22, was

one of the many students who agreed with the aforementioned statement, saying, “I mean I’m not going to be here, but I would get it if I had to.”

A few students, however, are not ecstatic about the possibility of a mandated second booster. When asked if he would consider receiving the second booster, Michael Costello, FCRH ’25, said, “Yeah, but if there was an option to not take it, I wouldn’t take it.”

Although Fordham has not yet mandated an additional COVID-19 booster dose for eligible students, staff and faculty, the staff has made it very clear that any future COVID-19 related decisions will be communicated to the Fordham community as quickly as possible.

The decision will be made to ensure eligible students have adequate time to both find and receive a second booster shot prior to the date in which they are required to have received it.

Changes to the Fordham University COVID-19 policy will be adjusted in accordance with other regulations, but the Fordham community should remain aware of a possible new vaccine mandate in the fall.

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Students may be required to get a second booster shot to return to campus.

COURTESY OF PIA FISCHETTI/ THE FORDHAM RAM

The decision to mandate second booster shots will be made based on availability.

NEWS

Page 6

April 13, 2022

OMA Celebrates AAPI Heritage Month

By ISABEL DANZIS NEWS EDITOR

The Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) began its celebrations for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month that will run throughout the month of April.

Typically, AAPI Heritage Month is celebrated during the month of May, but Fordham celebrates it a month early due to final exams taking up most of May. “I think AAPI Heritage Month is important because it’s a formal recognition of the contributions that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have made towards

the United States, as well as their past, contemporary and continuing achievements,” said Arthur Ze An Liu, FCRH ’23, cultural programming coordinator of the AAPI committee at Rose Hill, president of Asian Cultural Exchange (ACE) and vice president of Ascend. “Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have achieved a lot in the U.S., despite all the discrimination they have faced in the past [and] all the hardships and things that they still continue to face today.”

Throughout the month, OMA’s AAPI committee will be hosting events and programming surrounding AAPI

Heritage. They began the month by hosting a luncheon on April 1. The luncheon featured traditional Thai and Vietnamese cuisine as well as opportunities for students to win prizes. The committee also hosted an event on April 5 where students could make and learn about the art of origami. According to Liu, the AAPI committee has a tabling event that will occur every Tuesday during April in the McShane Center gallery.

Additionally, there are raffles that students can enter to win prizes.

The committee will be host-

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OMA began celebrating AAPI Heritage Month and hosted an Office Warming Party (above) in the month of April.

ing a “DIY Poke Bowl” event on April 21 in McShane commons.

According to Liu, this event is the one that he is looking forward to the most.

“It’s an opportunity for us to finally recognize one of the pacific islander territories, which in this case is Hawiian food. I think we have less than 10 Pacific Islander identifying people [at Fordham], and usually, when people think of AAPI, they think of Americans of Chinese descent, [or] Americans of Indian descent because these are large groups of people. It’s nice to finally recognize one of the smaller ones,” said Liu. According to Liu, the month will conclude with a fashion show at the Lincoln Center campus.

This month marks the first time that AAPI Heritage Month will be able to be conducted fully in person since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While AAPI Heritage Month occurred last year, the committee focused on events that were conducted via social media or virtual formats.

AAPI Heritage Month marks a very important and impactful event for many people. To many, it represents a time for Americans to recognize the accomplishments and heritage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

“I think AAPI Heritage Month means something different for me than the simple virtue that I’m not American. I haven’t faced as much of the hardships, very little compared to most Asian Americans here. I think that social justice and uplifting humanity transcends all borders and as an Asian person myself, it allows me to still celebrate my culture, even though I am away from home,” said Liu. Liu hopes that students at Fordham take away knowledge from each event.

He said that while he hopes that the events can serve as places for students to grow and learn about AAPI heritage, he also wants them to enjoy the events.

“I hope [students] learn a bit of knowledge about the history of AAPI people in America, but I also want them to enjoy the month because it’s a month of celebration and recognition. If they don’t enjoy it, that would be very sad,” said Liu. “I hope that they realize that you don’t have to be AAPI identifying in order to celebrate AAPI heritage month, that goes the same for Black History Month, LatinX History Month, etc. You don’t have to identify with the group you are celebrating to celebrate their achievement.”

Fordham Trustee Starts Fund to Support Ukrainian Students

By ISABEL DANZIS NEWS EDITOR

Kim Bepler, a Fordham trustee fellow, has recently begun a fund for Fordham students affected by the Ukrainian crisis.

The fund, in which Bepler will match every donation made up to $50,000, is meant to help students who may be facing newfound difficulties because of the ongoing Ukrainian crisis.

According to Bepler, the fund is an “unrestricted gift,” and the only requirement that students must meet is that their need is related to the crisis.

According to Bepler, the fund can go towards “helping [students] out with housing, food, clothing, whatever the need is.

[Besides] demonstrating that [a student’s need] is because of the Ukraine crisis, there is no restriction beyond that.”

The fund’s online platform states that students seeking support should reach out to Brian Ghanoo, assistant vice president of the Office of Student Financial Services.

Ghanoo will then work with the student to determine if their need is related to the Ukrainian crisis.

Bepler was first inspired to create the fund because of Fordham’s Center for Jewish Studies collaboration with The American Academy for Jewish Research and the New York Public Library which creates fellowship opportunities for individuals affected by the Ukrainian crisis. Fellows in this program will receive $5,000

stipends as well as remote access to research materials. In addition to the fellowship program, Bepler was struck by news coverage of Fordham’s Ukrainian student population.

“I’m someone that doesn’t sit idly by, and whatever small gestures I do, I’m an activist. I was online on the Fordham News site and I saw this extraordinary photograph of a Fordham student holding a Ukrainian flag. It just hit me that we have Ukrainian students at Fordham,” said Bepler.

According to Bepler, she worked closely with Roger Milici, vice president for development and university relations, to settle on creating a monetary fund.

Milici told Bepler that a fund would be “a really great idea” due to his knowledge that students had already reached out to the university for help because of their connections to the crisis.

The fund has helped the university address the financial issues that have occurred as a result of the conflict.

“The funds can’t fix everything, of course, but they can help to lessen the emotional and financial burdens on students,” said Robert Howe, assistant vice president for communications and special adviser to the president.

The fund is also available to Russian students who have been affected by the crisis.

“I just wanted to make certain that when we set this fund up, while we were focusing on the Ukrainian crisis and were

focusing on Ukraine students at Fordham, I wanted to make certain there was outreach to the Russian student population too,” said Bepler. “If they need counseling, they need someone to talk to, or they just want to be able to unite with their fellow Ukraine Fordham students, that’s something they could do.”

In addition to Bepler’s fund, the university has other processes in place to help affected students.

“Students are being cut off from the emotional and financial support of their families. It is important for the Fordham community to step up and be ‘men and women for others’ and help them through this crisis,” said Howe.

According to Howe, there is

no typical protocol that the university follows when a crisis of the nature of the Ukrainian crisis affects students. In terms of financial aid, Howe explained that each student requesting help as a result of the Ukrainian crisis is being reviewed on a “case-bycase basis.”

Students affected by the Ukrainian crisis have not only been affected financially, but many have been unable to return home or have had to change their housing situations.

University residential life has had to work with students to accommodate these unforeseen circumstances and changes.

“Residential Life has worked with a ‘handful’ of students, who had responded to Fordham’s offer to support affected students.

We have made it possible for them to easily remain in housing due to travel complications,” said Charles Clency, assistant dean of students and director of Residential Life.

Like financial aid, Clency noted that students’ situations are being reviewed on a “caseby-case basis.”

However, according to Clency, residential life is prepared to help students in any situations that may arise.

“It is important the students understand Residential Life is part of an universitywide joint effort to accommodate students facing these difficult circumstances, but our office stands ready and willing to do our part when called upon,” said Clency.

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Bepler is an active member of the community and has attended events with Rev. McShane.

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OPINION

Page 8

Serving the Fordham University campus & community since 1918.

The Fordham Ram is the university journal of record. The mission of The Fordham Ram is to provide a forum for the free and open exchange of ideas in service to the community and to act as a student advocate. The Fordham Ram is published every Wednesday during the academic year to all campuses with a readership of over 12,000 and a web readership of over 300,000.

Website TheFordhamRam.com Email Address theram@fordham.edu Editor in Chief Ava Erickson Managing Editor Hanif Amanullah Editorial Director Hasna Ceran Production Editor Michael Sluck Multimedia Director Pia Fischetti Business Director Matthew Colucci Copy Chief Amanda Yarolin Assistant Copy Chief Hannah Boring News Editor Isabel Danzis Features Editor Sebastian Diaz Assistant News Editors Samantha Minear Emma Kim Opinion Editor Nicole Braun Emma Lipkind Assistant Opinion Editor Daniella Terilli Culture Editors Elisabeth Murray Kari White Assistant Culture Editor Ilaina Kim Sports Editor Nick Guzman Assistant Sports Editors Thomas Aiello Maddie Bimonte Social Media Director Frances Schnepff Digital Producers Ava Carreiro Justin Charles Sofia Donohue Visual Director Nicoleta Papavasilakis Photo Editors Theodore Wai Nick DeSilva Graphics/Illustrations Cory Bork Faculty Advisor Beth Knobel Editorial Policy The Fordham Ram’s editorial reflects the editorial board’s opinions or views.

Opinion Policy The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of The Fordham Ram. Submissions Policy The Fordham Ram reserves the right to reject or edit any submission for any reason, without notice. Submissions become the exclusive property of The Fordham Ram. No part of The Fordham Ram may be reproduced without written consent.

April 13, 2022

From the Desk | Ava Carreiro

More Progress Needed for Women in Business

The fear of gender discrimination in the workplace is a reality for most, if not all, women in business.

As someone who is pursuing a career in business, I find it incredibly disheartening that the treatment of women in the corporate world is far from equitable.

A Harvard study revealed that men have significantly higher levels of success than women when making business pitches to investors. And it’s not because their pitches were better, all pitches were exactly the same in this study. Men are seen as more logical and knowledgeable in the business world, even though women are proven to be more educated than men in over 100 countries.

Biases against women often manifest in the form of unconscious microaggressions. The first step to giving women fair opportunities in business is to normalize checking implicit biases. One way to easily do this is by taking Harvard’s implicit bias tests online. A user can take a five-minute diagnostic which reveals any biases they may have against women, and also includes tests regarding skin tone, sexuality, race and religion. By acknowledging one’s unconscious bias, it becomes easier to work towards dismantling those prejudices and treating others equally regardless of gender. Executives must also remain impartial when making

decisions about hiring or promotions by becoming aware of the prejudices they may hold.

In the United States, the number of CEOs named John is higher than the number of all female CEOs combined. If that isn’t demoralizing enough, 95% of CEOs and 85% of board members and executives are men. The evidence is crystal clear: Gender disparities in leadership positions are prevalent throughout America.

Women don’t get the chance to earn as much as their male counterparts because the top positions are held by men. Only 23 companies in the Fortune 500 have female CEOs; if that number were multiplied by 10, it would still be less than half.

Many studies have shown that it is more difficult for women to get promoted to managerial positions than men, making it that much harder for them to obtain senior positions within a company. By keeping women stuck in lowerlevel jobs, they don’t even get the chance to be on the same playing field as their male counterparts.

To move towards gender equality in the workplace, each company must ensure that women and men are represented equally across the board concerning leadership roles.

When women are placed in lower positions within a company, it becomes obvious why there

is such a distinct wage gap. According to a Pew Research Center survey, women earned only 84% of what men earned in 2020. So women would have to work for 42 extra days just to earn the same amount as their male counterparts.

This study also revealed that “onein-four employed women said they had earned less than a man who was doing the same job,” while “just five percent of men said they had earned less than a woman doing the same job.”

It would be ignorant not to draw attention to the fact that women of color are put at an even further disadvantage, with Black women earning around 63 cents and Hispanic women earning 57 cents to every white man’s dollar. The common argument here is that women are typically in lower positions within a company. What that defense fails to consider are the reasons why women aren’t in higher positions. If investors favor men’s business pitches over women’s, men are more likely to be promoted to higher positions within the company. As a result of this positioning, we see many more men with titles such as CEO, CFO and CMO, thus receiving higher salaries.

There is no excuse for blatant sexism in a country that prides itself on being socially progressive, and this disparity needs to be remedied immediately. Executives and

supervisors must ensure that topics such as gender inequality can be treated seriously in the corporate world. This may take the form of workplace training, anonymous surveys, strict policies on gender discrimination and administering gender-neutral application processes for job positions.

Another way to ensure women receive equal opportunities for advancement in the business world is to mandate paid maternity leave. In the United States, roughly 35% of private companies offer some form of paid maternity leave. In order to give women the opportunity to receive equal pay in comparison to men, paid maternity leave must be mandatory for all states in the U.S. Although we have come a long way in working towards gender equality, women in business have yet to reap those benefits. Progress is surely possible, but the fate of that progress ultimately lies in the hands of men.

Editorial | USG Elections

USG Must Prioritize Transparency On Monday, April 11, The Fordham Ram published the article “USG Fails to Disclose Sanctions Against Candidates.”

The article revealed that Rose Hill’s United Student Government (USG) did not disclose sanctions that were placed on candidates last election cycle, and that it is USG’s policy not to disclose to voters when candidates are sanctioned.

The Ram’s editorial board does not support this policy, as voters deserve to have full transparency when casting their votes. During the week leading up to the election, the Ram closely watched the USG proceedings — the USG columnist Shannon Huurman attended the weekly meeting on March 31, the Ram moderated the Meet the Candidates event on April 6 and 7 and numerous USG members were interviewed — and it became clear to us at the Ram that these sanctions were an open secret in USG. In the USG weekly meeting on March 31, there was a reference to “last April’s scandal regarding election misconduct,” but no further information was revealed. The “scandal” was also subtly referenced at the event on April 7.

This discovery of USG’s policy of keeping sanctions private was incredibly troubling to us as voters.

If the USG Election Commission felt certain candidates deserved to be penalized for their actions, we believe voters should have access to those records in order to inform their votes. The USG Election code claims that actions deemed damaging enough to place sanctions on have significant negative impacts on the election as a whole. To make

an informed vote, it’s necessary for USG to disclose this kind of information about the candidates.

USG is supposed to act as an advocate for Fordham students. How can we trust them to do that for us if they are hiding crucial information from voters who are trying to decide who will best represent them? USG prides itself on being the voice of the student body, but it is impossible for it to accurately speak for and represent the whole student body, the voters, when it is keeping the results of important procedures behind closed doors.

If USG had simply been transparent with voters last year about the candidates who had been sanctioned, the information would not seem so pertinent this election cycle. Candidates would have had the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the sanctions without being subjected to rumors and speculation from both within USG and the wider student body in both last year and this year’s election cycles.

While reading the USG bylaws, Election Code and looking into the process for the 2022 election, other problems with the USG election process have come to light.

First, the amount of time the polls are open is less than two full days.

We at the Ram do not believe this is an adequate amount of time for students to cast their votes, especially considering the polls have opened the week of Easter break when many students are going out of town.

Additionally, USG did not send any emails to students about the upcoming election other than an email on March

21, which explained how to run for a position in USG. This was the first and only email containing election dates sent by USG prior to the opening of the short voting period, limiting the time voters had to research the candidates. On the day the polls opened, USG did not send out an email informing students that voting was open until the afternoon, even though the polls opened at 9 a.m. and it never publicized that fact through the USG or Election Commission Instagram accounts, further limiting the voting time for students who were unaware of the upcoming election.

The short voting period and lack of advertisement for the election make it difficult for students who are not involved in, related to or “in the know” about USG proceedings to participate in the election of our representatives.

Finally, the penalties associated with sanctions in the election code are incomparable to the types of violations detailed. In the Election Code, a major infraction is described as having a “significant material impact on the Election and causes severe harm to the integrity of the election.” The Election Code then details the penalties for major infractions which include a fine of up to 25% of the total allotment and suspending a candidate from campaigning for a period of time no less than 12 hours and no more than 24 hours. These penalties are a slap on the wrist for the types of infractions that fall under the major infraction category in the Election Code, a category that is reserved for infractions that have a significant impact on the integrity of the election. If

the Election Commission then hides the fact of who was even sanctioned from voters, there is really nothing of substance stopping candidates from acting in ways that compromise the integrity of the election, as it is unlikely the number of votes they will receive will be significantly affected by minor budget or campaigning sanctions.

Since the publication of the article “USG Fails to Disclose Sanctions Against Candidates,” the Ram has received several complaints that we did not release the names of those who were sanctioned. We would like to address those concerns by saying that we are still looking into this issue and will continue to update our readers as we find and confirm new information. Due to the secretive nature of the Election Committee’s sanction process, it is extremely difficult to verify who was sanctioned in last year’s election cycle. We at the Ram are committed to accurate reporting and will not publish any information unless we have thoroughly and adequately confirmed it.

Our goal is to shed light on the problematic nature of the USG election process. In the USG constitution, it states: “USG shall be the voice of the student body of Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) and the Gabelli School of Business (GSB) through elected Student Representatives in all university affairs.”

In order to be the voice of the student body, as USG says it is, the election process must change to be more transparent and inclusive to the student body.

OPINION

April 13, 2022

Page 9

Authors Need to Stop Using the Word “Girl” When Titling Books

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

Research shows that 65% of “girls” in these books are actually adult women.

By AVA ERICKSON EDITOR IN CHIEF

In the past year and a half, I have read six books with the word “girl” in the title, and my to-be-read pile contains an additional five titles containing the word “girl.” In 2016, author Emily St. John Mandel found that there were, in fact, 810 titles (excluding children’s books, young adults books and those with under 250 ratings) that include the word “girl” listed on Goodreads.

This number has increased since 2016, but that is the last time such detailed research was conducted.

Interestingly, St. John Mandel’s research revealed that 65% of the

“girls” in these books are actually adult women. So what is the cause of this strange and somewhat misleading publishing trend?

The answer: It sells. Some of the most successful books in the past 10 years have fallen into this trap. Think “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins, “The Girls” by Emma Cline, “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn and “Final Girls” by Riley Sager. Using the word “girl” to refer to a grown woman communicates something very specific about the protagonist to the reader. She is pretty, not glamorous, she appears naive, she’s spent her whole life conforming to a domestic stereotype and she is about to crack. As

a reader, we know the book will reveal the cold, ruthless side of her personality that’s hiding just below the modest outfit and perfectly shiny hair.

This in itself is not the problem. I find stories like this incredibly compelling. In revealing a darker side of the protagonists, these characters serve as a way to unwork the common stereotypes in literature and film of women as one dimensional in relation to their male counterparts. These authors present us with your typical “girl next door” character, and then dive deeper into her inner thoughts, intelligence and turmoil. However, even though the message portrayed to the reader is arguably a feminist one, the fact that we have been conditioned to see the word “girl” and think of this genre is problematic.

Books with the word “woman” or “women” in the title typically conjure a very different image.

She is rebellious from the start, she is eccentric and the author won’t spend nearly as much time focused on her effortlessly put-together beauty (think “Convenience Store Woman” by Sayaka Murata or “The Woman Destroyed” by Simone de Beauvior). These two female characters, the woman and the girl, are equally valid and

interesting characters, so why is one called a woman and the other a girl? I think it relates back to the “girl next door” stereotype.

While the “girl” books attempt to break it, I find they often play directly into it, suggesting that to be “beautiful,” a woman must appear innocent, naive, effortless, docile and modest (in both dress and achievements). This plays into a problematic societal beauty standard for women that upholds youth (and even adolescence) as the ultimate beauty, in an all-toooften dark and creepy way.

Additionally, referring to grown women as girls has historically been considered infantilizing and demeaning by feminists, especially considering men are rarely ever called boys in professional atmospheres or literature. Calling women girls insinuates that they are immature and must be cared for, negating their life experiences and authority as adults.

The issue goes even deeper when it comes to the publishing trend of calling women characters girls, because the use of the word “girl” implies that the story is a type of “coming of age” tale.

In reality, many of these books are not coming of age stories at all, but rather stories of strong, independent women taking con-

trol of a situation. Calling the protagonist a girl takes away her autonomy and voice, making it seem like she simply learned a lesson, rather than being an agent in the story.

Even if the character proves she is strong (enacts the perfect revenge, solves the mystery, escapes the killer, etc.), when you close the book and see the title, it sends the message that the whole thing was the result of youthful naivete, fueled by teenage emotion, rather than an autonomous decision-maker. It is important to note that you will rarely ever find a book where an adult man is referred to as a boy, aside from romance novels where the male character is not the protagonist.

Whether you agree with me or not that the use of the word “girl” in the titles of novels is a problematic trope, I think we can all agree it is getting stale. Literature has made incredible strides in the portrayal of female characters as multifaceted and autonomous individuals, and it’s time for book titles to catch up.

Ava Erickson, FCRH ’23, is a journalism and Spanish studies major from Denver, Colo.

Disney’s Response to “Don’t Say Gay” Bill is Disappointing

By SAMANTHA SCOTT STAFF WRITER

The passage of the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida is a tragedy. Restricting the education of LGBTQ+ topics in public schools is damaging to the LGBTQ+ community and undermines the support that young people struggling with their identity desperately need. What makes this even more of a tragedy is the absence of decisive action from those who could have done something to help prevent the passage of the bill. One such entity is the Walt Disney Company. Disney may have come out against the

bill publicly, but they responded far too late to make any real change in the trajectory of the bill.

Corporations, especially ones who are catered towards children, have a vested interest in bills beyond taxes and corporate interests in the government. Remaining neutral and impartial ultimately rendered Disney’s response ineffective and ensured the passage of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Disney is one of the most powerful companies in Florida.

They control a large amount of the tourism industry and employ a large number of Floridians.

They also employ 38 lobbyists

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Disney must learn from their response to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

to advocate for their economic and political interests. Their political influence and donations have given them a unique position in Florida politics to mold bills to accommodate them and their interests. Yet, when the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was introduced to the Florida House floor in January, Disney was silent.

There is no record of Disney lobbying on the bill as it went through the legislative process, even though Disney advocated for other bills. The gut reaction from employees and fans of Disney was that the bill and the effects it would have on the LGBTQ+ community were not a priority for the corporation.

As the bill came closer to being passed, more critics continued to call out Disney for their lack of action. Disney employees began to protest, urging Disney to do better and speak out against the bill. The former CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger, spoke out against the bill and said that it seemed wrong and potentially harmful to kids. Yet, Disney continued to remain quiet until the bill was in its final stages of approval. However, by that point, it was too late for anything to be effective. Disney was ultimately unable to halt

the passage of legislation.

The inability to stop the bill’s passage is a blow for Disney, a company that has much political influence in Florida politics and has a history of handling LGBTQ+ issues relatively well.

The reason their strategy was ultimately ineffective wasn’t because Disney isn’t a powerful political force, but because, by the time they got involved, it was in the hands of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. He had long advocated for the bill, despite growing criticism, and was always unlikely to change his position, even if Disney personally lobbied him. Also, DeSantis and other conservatives have changed their stance on corporations’ involvement and lobbying, believing that companies should only be involved in economic interests.

However, Disney could have prevented this by simply speaking out and lobbying against the bill when it was introduced.

It may not have been the smartest decision for Disney to come out and openly oppose the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

The choice to go against the legislation and review which politicians they are choosing to fund may isolate Republican lawmakers in Florida, many of whom have taken a pleasure in

seeing Disney ultimately fail to stop the passage of the bill.

Speaking out against the consequences of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and defending the LGBTQ+ youth is more important than politics or money. It may not have been effective and they may not have done it soon enough, but Disney’s choice to speak out was the right idea.

They just need to continue to speak out and oppose harmful legislation in Florida.

It’s one thing to speak out and it’s another to act. Disney needs to learn from the mistakes they made in their response to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and do better. They need to oppose legislation that hurts the LGBTQ+ community and young children in Florida. They need to continue to promote an inclusive environment, where everyone regardless of their identity or sexuality is welcome in their films, televisions shows and theme parks.

Actions speak louder than words. Disney needs to continue to speak out, but they need to back up their words with actions.

Samantha Scott, FCRH ’24, is an international political economy major from Columbus, Ohio.

OPINION

Page 10

April 13, 2022

More Legislature is Not the End All, Be All Answer to Ending Gun Violence

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Legislation might not be the only solution to the issue of gun violence.

By AVA KNIGHT CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A deadly shooting in Sacramento, California, on April 3 has sparked discussion over whether or not gun violence can really be controlled by the law.

California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, which include requiring background checks and identification for the sale and purchase of all weapons and ammunition, banning large capacity magazines and closely monitoring the registration of assault weapons. With all of these restrictions in place, how can deadly shootings still occur? In reality, the answer to ending gun violence may

not come from legislation.

Around 2 a.m. on April 3, a fight broke out outside of a nightclub in Sacramento. Moments later, gunshots rang out, killing six and injuring 12. Sacramento police chief Kathy Lester said that it is “confirmed that there are multiple shooters” involved in the deaths of the three men and three women.

Multiple shooters being involved with the killings can mean one of a few things: Multiple people evaded California’s strict weapon purchasing laws and bought the guns illegally, their potential criminal records or history of gun violence weren’t picked up by the background checks done before the gun purchases or the background

checks weren’t effective enough to predict future violent activity. Adding more restrictions is unlikely to combat any of the following and will likely further polarize gun control advocates and opposers.

Combating gun violence should begin by looking at examples of countries successful in keeping gun-related deaths low.

Much of Europe and South Asia, as well as countries such as Canada and Australia, have rates of less than one violent gun death per 100,000 people. Asian countries such as Singapore, China and Japan boast rates of less than 0.3 violent gun deaths per 100,000 people. Many low-income countries have low gun death rates but so do many developed countries around the world, such as South Korea and the United Kingdom. Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health and epidemiology, noted, “It is a little surprising that a country like ours should have this level of gun violence … If you compare us to other well-off countries, we really stand out.” Venezuela, El Salvador, the Philippines and Thailand also have unusually high levels of gunrelated deaths, but Mokdad commented that those are driven partially by drug trafficking and gang activity and, in the case of Venezuela, political unrest. The causes of gun violence in the United States, however, do not stem from these same issues. Socioeconomic issues such as “income inequality, poverty, underfunded public housing,

under-resourced public services, underperforming schools, lack of opportunity and perceptions of homelessness, and easy access to firearms by high-risk people,” are cited in The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence as the roots of gun violence and deaths in America.

A study done by the Harvard School of Public Health found a strong statistical correlation between rates of gun violence — including firearm-assisted homicide, robbery and assault — and income inequality and poverty in the United States.

Additionally, exposure to gun violence has been shown to lead to mental health issues such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and stunted cognitive and emotional development, possibly leading to the above issue of easy weapon access by high-risk people.

Additionally, states with high poverty rates often have higher gunrelated mortality rates, where they can’t get the same access to mental health services as states with lower poverty rates and often lower gunrelated mortality rates.

If gun violence stems largely from socioeconomic issues, more restrictive gun laws are unlikely to remedy the issues. Making more weapons illegal won’t stop people from getting them and hurting people, because their illegality doesn’t mean people can’t or won’t access them. Lowering rates of gun violence and gun-related deaths

requires attacking the roots of the issue.

With California’s gun restrictions, it is ranked 43 for the states with the highest rates of gun violence in the U.S. in 2018. These restrictions definitely curb rates of violence, but they do not address some of the roots of the issues as California has the 20th highest poverty rate in the United States.

Massachusetts, the state with the lowest rate of gun violence in 2018, has the ninth lowest poverty rate in the United States. Poverty and income inequality rates must be addressed before restrictions can be used to supplement. For example, New Hampshire, the state ranked 38 in terms of gun violence, has the lowest poverty rate in the U.S. at 7.3%. New Hampshire, however, does not require a permit to carry a handgun openly or concealed like 11 out of the 12 states with lower gun violence rates. In this example, more restrictions may be beneficial to curbing rates of gun violence and gun-related deaths but only in conjunction with its low poverty rates.

Restrictions have been proven to reduce gun violence, but to completely eradicate the astonishing amount of gun-related deaths and injuries, socioeconomic issues need to be addressed before more weapon restrictions are added.

Ava Knight, FCRH ’25, is a neuroscience major from Seattle, Wash.

New Bills Stadium: A Much-Needed Win for Upstate New Yorkers

By PETER MCGOWAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

During the process of crafting this coming year’s New York State budget, one of the hot button issues that has been discussed is the question of a new stadium for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, located in Orchard Park, New York. The small market club, facing pressure from the league to leave its current home, the aging Highmark Stadium, was given an unprecedented amount of public funding in the budget to use towards building a new home in Western New York, coming out to $600 million from the state and $250 million from Erie County. Championed by Governor Kathy Hochul, a native of Buffalo suburb Hamburg, the proposal has been met with intense backlash and criticism. Some people argue that the Bills’ billionaire owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, should pay for it themselves, and that stadiums funded by public dollars rarely have a positive economic impact for residents. However, these critics fail to completely grasp the importance that the club holds for upstate New York. The state was completely justified in

allocating these funds towards the stadium.

Chief amongst the concerns about the stadium funding plan, particularly from downstate New Yorkers, is that sending the money up to Buffalo for a stadium that many in the tri-state area will never use is a tremendous waste of money, considering the many issues facing New York City. However, this logic could not be further away from reality. If we go by this thinking, then New York might as well be two states, as many upstate New Yorkers will never set foot on the state-funded MTA transit system. Additionally, the construction of New York City’s Yankee Stadium, another place that many upstaters will never set foot in, cost New York $1.2 billion in taxpayer subsidies. It is only fair that those in Western New York are finally getting their piece of the pie.

What critics of the new stadium funding plan must keep in mind is that the NFL is a cutthroat business, with little regional loyalty when push comes to shove.

Smaller market teams will always be at risk of relocation. In fact, this recently happened in Saint Louis and San Diego with their teams,

the Rams and Chargers, leaving for the glitz, glamor and big money of Los Angeles. In both cases, taxpayers of their respective cities shot down proposals for public funding of new stadiums, and the teams didn’t hesitate to leave.

This threat was made as recently as last year in Buffalo, with the team floating the prospect of moving to Austin, Texas if a stadium funding deal could not get done.

Because of the relatively low cost of attending a game in Buffalo, and the lack of Fortune 500 advertising dollars compared to bigger markets, it would be hard to see a scenario where the team’s ownership would be willing to build without public support. The reality is, in order for some cities to keep their teams, the taxpayers must foot the bill. Buffalo is one of those places.

I’ve lived my entire life in Western New York; I’ve lived in Buffalo, Rochester and in between, and one thing that I know for certain is how much the Buffalo Bills mean to the region on a cultural level. As far as many of us see it, we don’t have the nightlife of New York City, the beaches of Long Island or the political power of Albany.

However, we do have a great

football team right in our backyard, and that is a serious source of regional pride. There are many people who would insist that it is ridiculous to spend such a great amount of public money on mere entertainment, which is what sports teams ultimately fall under.

That said, the Bills represent much more than a football team to people from where I grew up. If they were to leave town, it would

be a crushing blow and a loss of an important rallying cry for a Rust Belt city looking for something to cheer for. Understandably, $800 million is a daunting price tag for a football stadium, but the experience of having the NFL franchise in town is priceless.

Peter McGowan, FCRH ’24, is a political science major from Rochester, N.Y.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

The Bills were given $800 million in public funding to build a new stadium.

OPINION

April 13, 2022

Page 11

Insulin Cap Doesn’t Create Enough Equity

By CLAIRE BICKEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The American healthcare system is a disaster and capping the cost of insulin to $35 for those with health insurance will not fix it.

On March 1, 2022, in his State of the Union address, President Biden highlighted how high the cost of insulin is and proposed a price cap of $35 a month. In reality, this barely makes a dent in the costs for those living with diabetes and does nothing except potentially set a precedent for the millions of other Americans who encounter the healthcare industry.

While insulin is a considerable cost for diabetics, it is not the only one. Insulin pumps can cost around $8,000, not including the necessary supplies to use them. Simpler items such as blood test strips cost about $1 each. This price may not seem like much, but some diabetics must test their blood sugar up to 10 times a day, totaling about $100 every 10 days. Even with insurance, many diabetics find these outof-pocket costs unbearable.

Diabetes supplies are not the only healthcare-related expenses that are hard to support. Similarly to insulin, the epinephrine inside Epi-Pens, another life-saving drug, costs $1 for companies to produce, but consumers spend an average of $600 for two pens. In the United Kingdom, the same Epi-Pens cost £69 or about $74. Another example is childbirth, which can be incredibly expensive; it costs about $8,462 to give birth without complications in New York, even with insurance. With complications, costs can be

$12,114 and beyond.

One might argue that these costs reflect the quality of care given by hospitals in the United States, however, that is not even close to the case. The maternal death rate in the United States is 23.8 deaths per 100,000 births. In comparison, Finland charges its citizens about $42 per day for a hospital stay, and it is widely considered one of the safest places to give birth, with a maternal mortality rate of three deaths per 100,000 births. The cost versus benefit of the American healthcare system is horrendous, especially for a country that boasts such a large GDP. A foundational element of the healthcare industry is profit. Drug companies have relied on price gouging to make huge profits off citizens who have no choice but to buy life-saving medication such as insulin. In 1923, when Frederick Banting created synthetic insulin, he refused to be named on the patent and sold it for only $1 so that no one would be inhibited from receiving the drug and living a healthy life due to its cost. That hope was not realized, as many people today spend about $450 per month on insulin, even with insurance.

The point is that the millions of Americans who use the healthcare industry are at the mercy of its incredibly high prices. The government capping the cost of insulin for those who have insurance is valuable, but it doesn’t mean that we are on a path to addressing other issues in healthcare, such as childbirth costs or the inequality of care.

It should be noted that taking the step to cap the cost of insulin was not initiated by the

healthcare industry. If this bill were to pass the Senate and become law, which is unlikely, it would not be because the insurance and drug companies saw the error of their ways, which is clear from the fact that similar legislative efforts have had no support from the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, it would be the government forcing these companies to adhere to this price cap, and in response, the companies could make passing any other price cap near impossible.

On another note, the price cap is only for those who have insurance and does nothing to address the issue of access to healthcare. What about people who don’t have insurance? For people with conditions where a drug is needed to survive, it can be a death sentence to be without insurance. Health insurance is typically tied to employment in the United States, but not all jobs come with benefits. The New York Times interviewed Anthony Moore, a shift manager at a Burger King near Tampa, Florida who makes $9 per hour. He is uninsured, but his two daughters receive healthcare through Medicaid.

He does not make anywhere near enough money to insure himself, and there does not seem to be a solution on the horizon. A possible fix, the universal healthcare proposed by Democrats, still appears to be a pipedream and is, unfortunately, no closer to becoming a reality.

Another group who lives in the United States and are victims of the high costs and healthcare inequality are people who do not have legal status. Undocumented immigrants cannot legally work in

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Many Americans are at the mercy of the healthcare industry’s high prices.

the United States and, therefore, cannot receive any benefits through employment; they are also unable to utilize Medicare. The only remaining option would be to buy the costly private health insurance, and prices rise dramatically with pre-existing conditions.

Undocumented immigrants need and have a right just like anyone else to life-saving drugs such as insulin, but our healthcare system makes it almost impossible.

To make healthcare more affordable and, in turn, equitable for everyone living in the United States, we need to have universal healthcare. At the very least, everyone needs to have access to a yearly physical,

basic medical necessities and medications or procedures they need to survive. In the face of an ill family member, families should not be going bankrupt to keep their loved ones alive.

We could create a system similar to the United Kingdom, where the government negotiates drug prices with drug companies so that medication, technology, etc., are available at a reasonable price. A simple price cap on just insulin, only for the insured, does not move us closer to a responsible and equitable healthcare system.

Claire Bickel, FCRH ’24, is a political science and international political economy major and history minor from Branford, Conn.

Ramfit Center Signups are Counterproductive

By THOMAS AIELLO ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

The highly anticipated opening of the newly-renovated Ram Fit Center was something that people were excited about. The new gym had been rebranded with a modern aesthetic, twice the amount of original equipment as the old Ram Fit, including a new yoga studio, more open space and even state of the art water dispensers. After the return from Christmas break, everyone couldn’t wait to use the new facilities. Until that wasn’t the case at all.

On Jan. 3, Fordham Public Safety announced that all the fitness facilities, including the Lombardi Center, would be closed and exclusively for the use of student-athletes until Jan. 31.

The logic behind this was somewhat unclear, and the decision itself irrational given the fact that all of the studentathletes workout in the Varsity gym, which is reserved for stu-

dent-athletes only.

By the time the calendar turned to February, the new Ramfit had finally opened its doors to the general student body. But immediately, Fordham threw all sorts of restrictions on users of the new gym that included showing a completed vital check, signing up for the gym on the IMLeagues app to reserve a spot for one hour, limiting only 75 people per session and, of course, requiring masks.

Using the IML app to sign up for the gym is an absolute waste of time and effort given the fact that there are a number of issues with the app. For starters, the app constantly crashes due to the fact the spots were, and still are, hard to sign up for because everyone signs up at the same times each day. Sometimes the app will show that nobody has signed up for a 2 p.m. session, for example, then when you register, the app tells you the session is full.

Then comes the check-in pro-

cess when you arrive, which is equally as annoying as signing up for the session time. When you arrive before the start of your session, you have to stand in line and wait about 10-15 minutes while the guards make you scan your ID and then confirm your reservation on their computer.

This has continued to the present day, where Fordham students have to file in the cramped hallway outside the new entrance of the gym. This, of course, has people growing tiresome and creates a fire hazard.

By the time March rolled around, Fordham had made masks optional, and most Fordham students don’t wear them unless they are asked to.

This includes in Ram Fit, where there are few, if any, people wearing masks.

But the signups have remained throughout, capacity eventually being expanded to up to 200 people in the gym, still with time limits that got

COURTESY OF CAITRIA DEMEROTO/THE FORDHAM RAM

Signing up for the gym is a waste of time given the issues with the IML app.

extended, and the gym closing for 30 minutes in between sessions for cleaning, despite the common gym courtesy to clean all the equipment when you are done using it.

The pandemic is essentially over, nobody is wearing masks regularly anymore, and the protocols at Ram Fit are ridiculous, especially considering the fact you get a time limit at

the gym. If Fordham is to remove the signups and reduce a crowded hallway, prevent more headaches and let the gym be a more free flowing place, now is the time. Let the students get back to being students.

Thomas Aiello, FCRH ’23, is a journalism major from Allendale, N.J.

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April 13, 2022

West Chelsea Contemporary Raises Money for Fire Victims

By KARI WHITE CULTURE EDITOR

Through the month of February, the West Chelsea Contemporary (WCC) curated a gallery with New York-based artists in attempts to raise money for the victims of the Jan. 9 Bronx apartment fire. “New York Artists for the Bronx,” which ran from Jan. 29 to Feb. 27, showcased the artwork of renowned, contemporary artists, each of whom are intrinsically connected to NYC. By the gallery’s close, WCC had donated $24,519 to the Bronx Fire Relief Fund, which the Mayor’s Fund created in order to directly assist the families

impacted by the tragedy. The success of the gallery proves that art is more than just something to stare at — it’s a means for bringing together a community.

Lisa Russel, the president and founder of WCC, explained that, “Our ‘art for all’ mission at WCC is not only rooted in education and entertainment, but also community.

While art can be well-appreciated by oneself, it also brings people together and allows for open dialogue across a community. When we heard about The Bronx Fire Relief Fund, we jumped at the chance to contribute as a means of supporting our broader New York community.”

As WCC created their gallery, they had to decide what dialogue they would create. “Once we decided to donate 100% of the proceeds to The Bronx Relief Fund, we wanted to ensure that the exhibition itself was meaningful, so we turned to our NYC-based artists for inspiration. For being such a large city, simply being from, or living in, New York has a way of tying people together. Each artist chose one work to donate to the exhibition but, overall, the group of works evoked positivity and optimism, which felt fitting following this tragedy,” said Russel.

The NYC-based artists that they chose varied in their background,

COURTESY OF WEST CHELSEA CONTEMPORARY FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

WCC raised money for the Bronx Fire Relief Fund through their exhibit, “New York Artists for the Bronx.”

history and artistic styles, each showing a different facet of the myriad of perspectives that make up the richness of NYC’s culture.

Al Diaz, one of the featured artists, who was born and raised in New York, became a prominent figure on the NYC subway-graffiti art scene by the age of 15. Continuing to make public art critical of social norms, he currently transforms signs used by the MTA to create anagrams that he hangs in subway stations around the city. Cey Adams is another of the featured artists, who, like Diaz, is a New York native that rose to prominence during the graffiti movement of the 1980s. Today he creates art that, through layering different types of imagery, colors and materials, explores the intersection of pop culture and social issues. While not a graffiti artist nor raised in NYC herself, Jannette Beckman is another featured artist who became famous for her photographs capturing the underground hip-hop scene of 1980s NYC. Each of these renowned artists donated a piece of their artwork to “New York Artists for the Bronx,” which allowed the WCC to donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of their work directly to the Bronx Fire Relief Fund.

As Russel hoped, the works displayed in the gallery certainly captured the bright optimism of the city. As the defining links between the works in the gallery were the shared history and experiences of the artists, the artwork embodied the rich diversity of New York’s culture. On one wall, a piece showing a blue and pink, cartoon-

like raccoon hung beside a collage of comic book images that asked, “Where Have My Heroes Gone?”

On another, a stylized, stainedglass like painting of an elephant shares a wall with an abstract, human face. Going from one artwork to the next, it is impossible to guess what you’ll see. But how better to represent NYC? The city where a myriad of cultures interact, sometimes clashing, other times harmonizing, but always creating something beautiful.

In Russel’s view, this is the strength of art: it brings a community together. Yet, in order to do that, the art must be accessible for everyone to witness and appreciate. Russel explained, “Art is often thought of as an exclusive field, but our goal at WCC is to democratize the experience of viewing art. One does not need to have taken a fine art or art history class to look at a work and have a reaction to it — good or bad. Our goal is to engage with a diverse audience — from art expert to beginner — and share the joys of art, whether collecting or observing. This shared experience is key in creating a strong community that can support each other, especially in times of need.”

Art has the power to amplify voices, show varying perspectives, and, most importantly, strengthen the bonds of community. WCC recognized that power within the art they hang on their gallery’s walls, and saw in their unique position a way to help their community members devastated by tragedy.

They seized their opportunity to help, and proved how essential art is to every community.

So Long Señorita: Shawn’s Heartbreak Era

By JACQUELINE DELIA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Recently, fans were shocked to hear about the sudden break up of singers Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello. The itcouple made their long-lasting friendship into an official relationship in 2019, causing many mixed emotions across their respective fandoms. Many of Mendes’ fans were quick to hate on the relationship and found Cabello “annoying,” claiming that the two were not a good fit.

Despite the hate directed towards the relationship, their love stood strong. Mendes produced his fourth studio album “Wonder,” inspired by his relationship with Cabello. The album diverged from Mendes’ usual sound and explored a new genre, reaching out of his comfort zone.

Many fans, like myself, were disappointed with the album and felt that since his relationship with Cabello, his music sound changed for the worse. Besides its two major singles, “Wonder” and “Monster (Shawn Mendes & Justin Bieber),” the album was disappointing and unsuccessful compared to his others.

Personally, I found the songs

to be very slow-moving, and they all sounded similar to each other. I had given the album multiple chances but, along with many other fans, I was still unimpressed. I found my-

self listening more and more to his first two albums, as “Wonder” pushed me further away from his new music.

If you are looking for a new Mendes song that is reminis-

cent of his old sound, “When You’re Gone” is a great place to start. This new release is Mendes’ second single released after his breakup with Cabello, and it gives fans the music they

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Shawn Mendes returns with a lackluster fourth album, “Wonder,” that diverges from his traditional sound.

were missing (and a new break up song for the summer).

“When You’re Gone” details the raw emotions that follow a breakup. Now that your person is no longer there by your side, how are you supposed to move on? Not ready to let go of that person, the lyrics reflect the struggle of trying to hold onto something that is already gone and to learn to live without it.

A week before the song was released, Mendes discussed in an interview how his mental health was seriously affected after the split, which is what also inspired the song and its lyrics. He explained how he felt isolated without her, attempting to manage his anxiety without anyone to turn to.

Although this song is not my favorite of his, it was definitely more of what I was looking for when “Wonder” came out. With its catchy chorus and emotional verses, it felt like Mendes was returning to his old style of music that people know and love.

I, personally, am very excited to see what music he comes out with, and I hope that he gives his fans something similar to his earlier style, one which topped the charts and had generated his fanbase.

CULTURE

April 13, 2022

Page 13

A Sweet Win for Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour”

By LAURA LARSEN

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“It’s brutal out here,” but not at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards where Olivia Rodrigo took home three trophies. The 19-year-old singer-songwriter has captivated billions with her debut album “Sour,” which dropped in May 2021. Rodrigo was nominated for seven awards and won Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Pop Solo Performance for “driver’s license.” Since the single’s release in January 2021, Rodrigo has been shattering records.

According to Billboard, Rodrigo smashed Taylor Swift’s record for most tracks in the Top 10 at a time by a woman, as Rodrigo held eight. She also passed Ariana Grande for the number one spot in most streams in a week. “good 4 u” played 84 million times in just seven days compared to Grande’s “7 Rings,” which garnered 70 million listens in a single week in 2019. Not only has this sensational breakout artist beat records held by music legends, but Rodrigo claimed the spot for biggest opening week by a female artist on

Spotify as “Sour” gained 385 million streams.

This artist’s talent is remarkable, and her lyrics are incredibly captivating. Rodrigo is young, yet she is reaching milestones at an unprecedented rate. Some might question how a teenager from Temecula, California, can be such a dominant force in the music industry so early in her career, but it’s because her audience resonates with her so much. Rodrigo’s music, both the upbeat jams and somber melodies, expose the listener to who she is and her experiences. Her lyrics make fans feel like they are in on her secrets, which connects Rodrigo’s audience to her.

In Sour’s opening track, “brutal,” Rodrigo sings, “And I don’t stick up for myself / I’m anxious and nothing can help / And I wish I’d done this before / And I wish people liked me more.” These punchy lyrics evidence her utmost openness; in doing so, they create a space for her fans to ponder on such feelings, relating to her anxieties and wishes. Rodrigo’s music not only initiates public conversation about her, but also the content of her work — heartbreak. People

appreciate how her music has this unique ability.

In the album’s 10th track, “favorite crime,” she expresses: “It’s bittersweet to think about the damage that we do / ‘Cause I was going down, but I was doing it with you.”

Rodrigo’s vulnerability about past pain shines through in her lyrics, and she continues to be honest with her listeners. This

artist remains raw and authentic, even when this means she must paint herself in a negative way. For example, in “happier,” she writes, “So find someone great, but don’t find no one better / I hope you’re happy, but don’t be happier.”

Some might believe that Rodrigo did not deserve to take home three Grammys over fellow-nominees like Justin

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Rodrigo won a total of three Grammys at the 2022 award ceremony.

Bieber, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Grande, Finneas, Glass Animals, The Kid LAROI, Saweetie and more. However, I fully believe that she earned those Grammys. Don’t get me wrong, I am an avid fan of Grande, Eilish, Doja — you name it.

But even so, Rodrigo deserves those Grammys not just for her exceptional work, but for what those wins symbolize and commemorate.

It is not very often that the public witnesses the breakout success that is “Sour.” Just days after being released, Rodrigo’s songs were blasted from shopping malls to teenager’s cars to restaurants around the globe.

Veteran singer-songwriters who have been in the limelight for years stopped to listen to what she had to say. Beyond that, Rodrigo’s lyrics united millions when the COVID-19 pandemic was forcing people to remain apart.

You can have a sour taste in your mouth about “Sour,” but there is no denying the impact of her debut album. Rodrigo may have written “1 step forward, 3 steps back,” but I believe she has rightfully taken three steps forward with her three well-deserved Grammy wins.

Who’s That Kid | It’s Ryan Gregware, FCRH ’23!

Sophomore Explores Passion for Sports Reporting at WFUV

By THOMAS AIELLO

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

It was only by a stroke of luck that one random day in fifth grade he turned on the Yankees game and was instantly hooked on the Bronx Bombers. He then became the sports editor for his high school newspaper.

Now, he’s embarking on a new challenge: Sports Manager of WFUV. Ryan Gregware, FCRH ’23, has gone from humble beginnings at Fordham to becoming the new top dog at WFUV.

After discovering his love for sports in elementary school and his passion for sports reporting in high school, he realized he could do this for a living.

“I think in 10th or 11th grade I took a broadcast production class,” said Gregware. “I was the sports editor of my school paper, and that is when I knew I wanted to do something in sports.”

And what better place to do that than Fordham University.

Gregware’s decision to come to Fordham was quite simple: WFUV and the legacy that

station carries produces sports media icons.

“The radio station was a huge pull for me, and it was ultimately the reason I chose Fordham,” he said. “Getting to see WFUV was a big draw, and I came into Fordham with the mindset to join the radio station.”

Like any freshman joining such an organization, Gregware was nervous and feared he would be cut. But, it all ended up being a good thing that he joined as he has risen to the top of the station as the sports manager-elect.

COURTESY OF RYAN GREGWARE FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

Gregware stayed true to his passion for sports reporting, becoming the next Sports Director for WFUV.

Gregware’s voice and name are known throughout the campus of Fordham for his colorful commentary on Fordham Men’s Basketball. He leads Nosebleeds, an MLB podcast, and does beat reporting for his beloved Yankees and Knicks on a regular basis.

But he didn’t always think he could rise to such heights. When he got the Yankees beat reporting job last summer, he had seen himself as a finished product.

“Once I got that beat last summer, and was fortunate enough to cover them, I truthfully thought that would be the peak. And I had no issues whatsoever.”

The lifelong Yankees fan has seen destiny fulfilled from his perspective, and was very happy about it. But destiny is a funny thing, especially when it has more planned for you down the road.

“I don’t think I ever had any intention of being the sports manager, I was just so focused on training and doing the best that I could,” Gregware said.

“I’ve been blessed with some opportunities to be trusted and I hope that I’ve done enough in those roles to garner that trust.”

The current holder of the WFUV Sports Manager role, Alexander Wolz, FCRH ’23, placed a lot of faith in Gregware to do many different things this past year, and Gregware excelled in all of them. The process, while stressful, was also an exciting one.

“I remember going through

it myself, and you always try to give your ideas to the program,” said Wolz. “But you want the next person to leave it in a better place than when you found it, and Ryan is definitely someone who has a lot of care and love for the place … but at the same time can do an even better job than I did.”

It just so happens that Gregware and Wolz were in the same training group, but Wolz saw something in Gregware that signaled to him that he was destined for greatness.

“It’s funny because my training group was mostly full of guys who are now juniors and are big parts of the program,” Wolz added. “But especially Ryan, he was just so incredibly focused and committed; he would sweat the little mistakes and he is also a big sports fan, too, but to see him grow in the years since is very exciting.”

Even the Sports Director of WFUV, Bobby Ciafardini, knows Gregware’s potential and the process that it took to get to this point.

“To me, the sports manager has the same qualities as the captain of a sports team,” said Ciafardini, “Someone that fills in anywhere that is needed for that day. Ryan established himself as someone that is going to make a great leader, he has made strides in that department and I think he will be a fine sports manager as a senior.”

With the transition process already underway, Wolz now passes the torch of Sports Manager and the future of WFUV into good hands for Gregware.

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April 13, 2022

Editor’s Pick | Apps

Ode to the Notes App

By HANIF AMANULLAH MANAGING EDITOR

I see memos from past Sunday’s newspaper budget meeting, a handy list of condenser microphone settings, a particularly poignant sentiment from Khalil Jibran’s “Sand and Foam,” a list of groceries I need to buy from Cherry Valley this Friday…

What do all these things have in common? They’re entries in my notes app. Most smartphones have something like it. At first glance, it’s a place to keep track of various, well, notes. Upon further reflection, it is an essential collection of personal media.

I think there is a tendency to separate the serious from ourselves, and to separate “real art” from our personal muses. We assume that which is sophisticated must be created with sophistication in mind and things written out of instinct or pure necessity are deemed dregs of deeper thought.

Look at it this way: Whether due to academia, the AP style guide or the social cues that define an Instagram caption, we find ourselves limited and constrained by stylistic conventions.

When I open up my notes app there is no limit, there are no academic or social styles that I must conform to. The only stylistic

thread that runs through each note is that they are mine. All the work, the phone numbers, the lines of poetry and the various shopping lists only have to do with me. …A list of concerts I’ve been to so far, beginning in 2017 and ending last night, random measurements from a pergola I built over the summer (“65-inch 4x4s and 105½-inch 4x6s”), helpful D&D websites, an exasperatingly pretentious question from 2016 (“thought: are the erosion of class distinction and the fortification of individualism mutually exclusive or combined goals?”)

I think about the Walt Whitman quote from “Song of Myself 51:” “Do I contradict myself? / Very well, then I contradict myself / (I am large, I contain multitudes).”

It sounds serious, and to quote it feels kitschy. But when I examine my notes app, I can’t help but notice the various contradictions that comprise what it is to be me.

Where else do I have a dashboard in which I can jot down every thought that runs through my head, free from critique (save for my future self)? Where else can I expound endlessly upon belief and feeling, even though for the most part it is annoyingly pompous or facile? There is nowhere else I can really do that.

Even those who keep journals or diaries know that in all spaces but the notes app, we hold ourselves to arbitrary standards of writing and observation. On the notes app we compose revenge texts, love letters, ideas for essays and personal statements. We record things that, for all intents and purposes, do not belong anywhere else. We record things solely for ourselves.

This brings me to my main point. Just as we have a tendency to separate the serious from the intimate, we have a tendency to write these notes off as extraneous to ourselves. The notes app is where you dump ideas, thoughts and anything else that has no defined place to reside. But upon reviewing the countless notes I have collected, I can see that what is dumped is not extraneous at all.

Rather, it is integral to myself. It is my own media collection, where the style guide is my personality.

It is where the painfully personal and the hilariously unimportant collide. I flip through documents that have changed my life, and I flip through documents I have no reason not to delete because, in a strange way, they are me. …A copy of the last few texts my grandfather sent before he passed away in 2018; XBox account numbers from 2014; lines of

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The notes app stores our most vulnerable thoughts from grocery lists to song lyrics.

what pass for poetry, written during a road trip through the southwest in 2017; a voice-to-text description of my childhood home, recorded on the day my family packed up and move So, this is an ode to the notes app, where we are at once the troubled author, the inspired lyricist, the insightful reporter and the impassioned speechwriter. The notes app, which is the piece of media we visit most often yet appreciate the least. The notes app, which is a paradoxically comforting purgatory between the insides of our heads and the outside world.

Thank you for receiving all that is important to us, as well as all that is unimportant, and

for letting us look back with awe and a fair amount of embarrassment. Thank you for affording us a place to take ourselves seriously, to compose personal epics and profound reflections.

Thank you for letting us remark on the glib, harp on the pesky, categorize the inane. Thank you for serving as a sounding board for our lives, and in so doing, capturing our personalities at their most visceral.

For all those that may not have done so in a while: I encourage you to wander back through your notes app. Scroll back, scroll down, scroll far and take the time to appreciate all you’ve seen and all you’ve been.

There’s an r/place for Everyone

By ERICA WEIDNER

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR EMERITA

Lots of social media websites do fun things for April Fools’ Day. However, Reddit’s April Fools’ gag, r/place, takes the cake as not only the coolest gimmick but as one of the coolest pages on the internet.

Reddit debuted r/place on April Fools’ Day 2017. A kind of interactive public art project, r/place begins as a blank, 1000x1000pixel canvas. Each user can place one pixel at a time, with a cooldown time of five minutes before placing another. In 2017, r/place was up for 72 hours. During that time, users filled the canvas with flags, artwork, logos and pop culture references.

This year, Reddit brought back r/place for April Fools’ Day, and users leaped at the chance to create something again. Reddit also doubled the canvas size (from 1000x1000 pixels to 2000x2000 pixels) and expanded the color palette available to users. The result is an insanely complicated, beautiful tapestry of internet artistry. You can view the canvas at www.reddit. com/r/place, and I highly encourage you to explore it.

In 2017, r/place was brand new, and the canvas was relatively uncoordinated. When Reddit revealed that r/place would be happening again in 2022, users had time to prepare. Like the old one, the new canvas is covered in similar images to the previous canvas, but this year’s are far more complex.

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Reddit brought back r/place for April Fools this year.

Still, some of the same images from the 2017 canvas appear on the 2022 edition. In 2017, a group of people decided they wanted to make the bottom right corner of the canvas blue. In 2022, Reddit users once again dedicated themselves to creating “the blue corner.” Unlike the fan bases and patriots responsible for most of the canvas’ artwork, the blue corner exists solely because people wanted a blue corner. The internet is a weird and wonderful place.

Because of the cooldown time and the sheer number of Reddit users placing pixels — at its peak, 2.5 million pixels per hour — it’s impossible for a single person to create anything noteworthy. Users had to work together to create art. As a result, r/place is a monument to the human powers of collaboration: This is what we can create when we put our minds to it.

Chances are, your interests

appear somewhere on r/place.

Are you feeling patriotic? There’s a massive American flag in the bottom right section with the country’s most famous symbols drawn overtop: a bald eagle, the Freedom Tower and the Statue of Liberty among other famous American icons. Or are you feeling patriotic for other countries? Most of the world’s flags can be found on r/ place, from Azerbaijan to Peru and Canada to Lithuania.

If country flags aren’t your thing, fear not. Are you a sports fan? Your favorite team’s logo is probably tucked somewhere in the pixels of r/place. Do you like “Star Wars?”

Fans recreated the “A New Hope” poster and the lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin.

Is anime more your speed? “One Piece” fans created several pieces of pixel art scattered across the canvas. Maybe you’re just in the mood for some cool artwork untied to

popular culture, like a gorgeous recreation of “The Great Wave” or a pixel rendition of “Starry Night,” complete with a oneeared Vincent Van Gogh.

Fordham University briefly made itself a home on the canvas, though the logo didn’t survive to the end of r/place. (It did, however, outlast Columbia University.)

Watching r/place in progress was an incredible experience. I got to witness people working together and working against one another. I also got to place a few pixels of my own — I helped make a bisexual pride flag on the right side of the canvas.

Since the canvas was huge, I obviously couldn’t watch every “battle” happen at once, so I chose a couple to focus on. One of my favorite “battles” on the canvas was between the logos for “CS:GO” and “Fortnite,” which were placed directly across from each other.

The gunman on the “CS:GO” logo appears to be aiming at his competitor, and users kept placing black pixels on the “Fortnite” logo to simulate bullet holes.

I watched fans of my favorite band, Muse, take control of a small space in the top left of the canvas. Working together, members of r/Muse created not only the band’s logo but 8x8 pixel art of all nine Muse album covers.

That project began the first day of r/place, and the artwork survived fully intact until the canvas closed.

Defending that small group of pixels took coordinated effort.

Defense was an important

element of r/place. Sure, you could work together with a subreddit to create an image, but nothing prevents other users from replacing that image with their own. No one saw this more quickly than fans of the video game “Genshin Impact.”

Without anyone defending the logo, the word “Genshin” became “GayShrek,” with an “Among Us” crewmate covering part of the logo. Eventually, the space split into pieces as communities carved out the remaining canvas space.

“Among Us” crewmates were a common theme in this year’s canvas. They’re insanely easy to draw — 16 pixels and two colors — and instantly recognizable. Users invaded larger works of art and placed crewmates that matched the existing colors. This resulted in images that looked fine from a distance but were ruined upon zooming in — a kind of sus impressionist effect.

On April 4, r/place officially ended. Its end, too, was surprisingly artistic: Reddit changed the settings so that users could only place white pixels. The white void steadily consumed the artwork until the entire canvas was blank again.

It’s unclear when — or if — Reddit will do r/place again, but I’m hopeful that it’ll come back someday. If 2022’s canvas was such an improvement over 2017, then I can’t wait to see what future iterations of r/place will bring. I look forward to seeing the creative power of the internet in

CULTURE

April 13, 2022

Page 15

The Women’s Network Invites The Jarr to Fordham

By KARI WHITE CULTURE EDITOR

On April 4, The Women’s Network held a virtual speaker event where they invited Eli Rallo, known on TikTok as @TheJarr, to speak on all things ambition, college and what it’s like trying to find your way in the world as a young woman. Rallo shared her nuggets of wisdom, saying that, “You should not have a pleasant experience getting a bagel on a Saturday morning. If you’re going to get a good bagel, you need to have a bad experience.” The event covered a broad range of topics, as Rallo discussed education, the value of being persistent and her writing inspiration.

Casey Dobson, FCRH ’24, president of Fordham’s chapter of The Women’s Network, explained that, for the chapter, inviting Rallo to speak was a

no-brainer. “I decided to reach out to Eli Rallo because we’re encouraged to find speakers that exemplify The Women’s Network’s core values of unapologetic ambition, authenticity and determination. Myself and other members of our executive board have been fans of hers for a while, so when I was trying to think of people from various career industries (with social media and communications being one of our most-represented field interests among our Fordham members), I thought of Rallo immediately.”

Rallo certainly fit those descriptors, as she explained the philosophy that prompted her to go to Columbia Journalism School, make TikTok a serious career opportunity and pursue her dream of becoming a published author. First off, she’s relentless. She attributed her mindset of shamelessly

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Rallo has amassed over 500,000 followers on TikTok.

pursuing her dream to her parents, who always taught her to fight for what she wanted. It was them who taught her to email everyone for an opportunity, as the worst that could happen is she gets rejected. As someone learning to not be terrified of my email, that’s particularly inspiring.

Complementing that, Rallo explained the importance of keeping your dreams alive even if they are unattainable in the present moment. “For the past six-seven years, I doubted whether or not I could be a published author. That was my dream; that was my goal … Your whole brain is house, [that dream] was in the backroom. That thought was always there, I never let it out the door,” Rallo said.

Yet, it wasn’t just Rallo’s accomplishments that drew Dobson, and the rest of The Women’s Network e-board, to her. Dobson explained, “Rallo is someone who will speak her mind on any given topic at any given moment, no matter who is listening. In a world where women are constantly being kept on their toes, both professionally and socially, hearing someone like Rallo be so unafraid to deliver sound, strong opinions and advice for other young women is so refreshing. A huge aspect of her social media presence is her giving advice to her followers about any range of topics. I was hoping she could do the same for our members and their burning questions about college, graduate school,

living in New York, being selfemployed and beyond — I was right. She totally knocked it out of the park and amazed everyone who attended the event.”

Rallos’ fearless candor certainly made an impression upon me, especially as she discussed the college experience and what her biggest take-aways from her college experience were.

“College, to me, is about discovering yourself… [You] have to feel everything, especially the hard things.” Rallo explained that those four years, “let me get to know my emotional capabilities.”

My biggest take-away from the event was Rallo’s writing advice.

When she’s looking for inspiration for content, whether it be for her TikTok, her podcast or her upcoming book, she simply pays attention to the world around her.

Rather than listening to music as she walks down the street, she listens to the sirens, jokes and gossip on the street. On top of that, she also reads. A lot. She immediately suggested reading “Dear Sugar” by Cheryl Strayed, which is an advice column for “The Rumpus.” Reading through just one of Sugar’s letters, it’s clear to see why Rallo would aspire to Strayed’s level of writing. “Monsters and Ghosts,” #98 of the column, is heartfelt, heartbreaking and utterly uplifting. Strayed possesses the same unabashed honesty that doesn’t coddle, but holds your hand, which Rallo infuses

into her personal brand.

Dobson’s own personal takeaway was not “any specific information or advice, but again just [Rallo’s] commitment to authenticity. She was so clear about the fact that it’s what has carried her through all her points of uncertainty in her collegiate and professional life, which is just so important nowadays. There is so much discussion about climbing corporate ladders or ‘playing by the rules other people set’ that it’s just so rewarding to hear someone successful, living her dream, commit to being so genuine.”

Rallo’s most genuine moment?

Confessing her favorite, “on-acollege-budget jar:” peanut-butter M&M’s, salted macadamia nuts (she thinks “they’re the best f---ing nut”) and Cheetos. You read that right. Cheetos. Combining Cheetos with peanut-butter M&M’s is certainly a bold choice, but as both Dobson and Rallo herself will tell you, it’s that boldness that has led to her success.

To hear more from Rallo, follow her on Instagram at @ eli.rallo and on TikTok at @ TheJarr. If you’re interested in similar events, join Fordham’s chapter of The Women’s Network at their Instagram, @thewomensnetwork_fordham.

While they don’t have many more events for the rest of the semester, they have an exciting semester planned for the fall.

Rams Review Books | Looking for Alaska

Find Yourself in “Looking for Alaska”

By JULIANNA MORALES CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“When adults say, ‘Teenagers think they are invincible’ with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken.” —John Green John Green is a name with which most college students are familiar. He is a popular young adult author, probably most famous for his book “The Fault in Our Stars.” However, his debut novel “Looking for Alaska” is underrated, often being ignored in favor of his more recent works.

Like his other books, he tells the story of a romance plagued by complications and pain outside the tropes used by other authors in the same genre. The book follows a teenage boy named Miles Halter as he begins attending boarding school at his dad’s alma mater, Culver Creek, in hopes of finding some deep meaning in his life.

When he moves in, he quickly befriends his roommate and forms his band of misfits. These kids are separated from others at the school primarily due to their financial status — they are the scholarship kids constantly at war with the upper-class students.

Miles is immediately infatuated with one person in particular,

Alaska Young. Alaska is a beautiful, intelligent and strikingly complex person. She represents a mystery he so desperately wants to solve. Green expertly writes their relationship in a way which highlights both the connection they form and the distance Alaska keeps.

Miles and his friends face numerous conflicts with other students and among themselves.

They navigate various emotions that they barely understand.

Alaska holds an interesting role as both their companion and their biggest struggle. She’s hard for any of them to keep up with,

having quick changing feelings, plans and desires.

Following their story takes the reader through a fascinating series of ups and downs which makes the book increasingly interesting until the very end. But what truly makes this a good read is how supreme-

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The novel by John Green has been adapted into a series that is now available to stream on Hulu.

ly real the characters Green writes are. Any book gets better when you can care for and connect with the characters.

Each individual described in “Looking for Alaska” has different backgrounds and feelings, allowing readers to find someone they see as a reflection of themselves. We may feel as though reading young adult novels is behind us and equate this book with those we read in our preteen years, but the content is much more within the realm of the college age group.

It can be easy to lose track of the idea of reading for fun, especially as the end of the semester approaches and students find themselves constantly looking at textbooks, but this fast-paced, emotionfilled read might be just the thing to remind you that reading can be entertaining this spring. It’ll be fun at times and sad at others. Sometimes you can’t put it down, others you may have to take a minute.

That’s the sign of a good book.

“Looking for Alaska” was adapted into a Hulu miniseries which actually represented the essence of the story very nicely and is definitely worth the watch if you like the story.

But, as always, make sure to read the book first. I promise it’s better that way.

Page 16

Men’s Tennis Rolls Lafayette Amid Coaching Change

By MILES GROSSMAN STAFF WRITER

On Saturday, interim head coach Mike Sowter led the Fordham Rams to an impressive win in Easton, Pennsylvania against the Patriot League’s Lafayette College. After Nelson Peña left the program due to personal reasons a couple of weeks ago, Sowter took the reins in an interim role.

Sowter coached the Fordham men’s team from 2015 to 2021 before taking over the women’s team which, unlike the men’s squad, is a full scholarship program. The Australian-born skipper led the Rams to a career total of 69 wins over his six season tenure. For many upperclassmen, Sowter is a welcome familiar face.

Rejuvenated by the change at the top, the senior duo of Juan Paredes and Tom Russwurm picked up dominant straight set wins in the #3 and #1 spots, respectively.

Junior Toi Kobayashi followed suit with a 6-2, 6-0 win in the #4 hole against Lafayette’s David Esslinger.

Fordham also swept the Leopards in doubles play.

Lafayette has had a very disappointing season, going winless in the Patriot League and only managing two total Division I wins. During the 2022 part of the season, the Leopards have bested Coppin State University of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) at home in mid-February, but have been unable to pick up a win against a legitimate opponent

ever since then.

With the Atlantic 10 Tournament being right around the corner, the match on Saturday provided a major opportunity for the Rams to gain some momentum, and they made sure to capitalize.

After facing the group at the bottom of the Patriot League, the Rams will tackle the team just one notch above them in the College of the Holy Cross Crusaders.

That contest will be played this Saturday at the Hawthorn-Rooney Tennis Facility on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, marking the first actual home match of the Rams’ 2022 portion of the season. Prior to this upcoming weekend’s match, Fordham hosted all of their 2022 matches at the LifeTime Athletic Club in Harrison, New York, which essentially eliminated any possiblehome court advantage.

Things are looking up for the Rams. They are coming off a dominant victory for the first time in a while, they are finally getting back to their true home in the Bronx and they now have a familiar face at the helm in Sowter. They are currently two weeks out from the A-10 Tournament in Orlando riding this newfound sense of confidence, and the season is far from over. This Saturday’s Holy Cross match will be the Ram’s final regular season contest before heading to Florida where their season will be put on the line.

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Tom Russwurm led the way for the Rams’ strong victory.

Athletes of the Week

Makenzie McGrath

Senior pitcher Makenzie McGrath was a star this week in the circle, as she pulled Fordham to a slim 2-0 win over Kent State University in the second game of a double header on Saturday.

McGrath went the distance; pitching seven complete innings, while striking out five, walking only one batter and allowing three hits in her start. This was her first complete game shutout of the year.

Senior Softball

SPORTS

The USMNT’s Striker Dilemma

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) officially qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. A bumpy qualifying campaign ultimately ended on a positive note for the stars and stripes, who redeemed themselves after failing to qualify for the 2018 edition of the major tournament.

While we know who the U.S. Men will play in Qatar (England; Iran and either Wales, Scotland or Ukraine), questions linger about how the squad will lineup come tournament time in November. The team seems solid at the back and in midfield, with Walker Zimmerman and Miles Robinson emerging as starting center backs and Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah anchoring the middle.

But the biggest question mark remains in perhaps the most important position on the field: striker. Over the past year, a plethora of different forwards have started up top for the USMNT, with none of them able to perform consistently and claim the starting spot.

Players like Josh Sargent, Theoson “Pefok” Siebatcheu, Gyasi Zardes, Daryl Dike, Ricardo Pepi and Jesus Ferreira all get their chance, but no player has managed to impress over a long term basis.

Pepi has shown the brightest flashes, scoring big goals against Honduras and Jamaica in the September and October qualifying windows. At just 19 years old, Pepi’s talent earned him a move to FC Augsburg in the German Bundesliga, where he has struggled to get acclimated.

Pepi now hasn’t scored a goal for club or country since October, although he remains arguably the most talented striker in the player pool. It’s tough to rely on a 19-year-old to be consistent, but Pepi has every chance to place himself above the competition and cement himself as a starter for the USMNT. For Sargent and Dike, recent moves to England haven’t panned out how they would have

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With Qatar in sight, it’s time for the U.S. to focus on their striker postion. hoped. Sargent has scored just two Premier League goals for a poor Norwich City side that are destined for relegation, while Dike has played just two games for West Bromwich Albion since his transfer in January due to a hamstring injury. Both players need to start scoring regularly at club level if they want to break back into the USMNT picture that they have fallen out in recent months.

A player who has been scoring consistently in his club play is Pefok, who’s netted 20 goals across 30 games in all competitions for BSC Young Boys in the Swiss Super League. Pefok’s stellar form earned him a call-up for this most recent qualifying window in March, but he failed to impress in limited action.

Against Mexico, Pefok missed a golden chance to score and looked generally disinterested in the game after coming on as a substitute. At the national team level, there’s no telling how many chances you might get to make an impact. For Pefok, his chance might have passed by.

That leaves Gyasi Zardes and Jesus Ferreira, two players on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Zardes is a player who USMNT fans love to rag on, perhaps unfairly at some points. He is

HOME AWAY

Wednesday Thursday April 13 April 14

Men’s Track & Field

Dayton 3 p.m.

Baseball

Friday April 15

Saturday April 16

Larry Ellis Invitational 2 p.m.

Larry Ellis Invitational 2 p.m.

Larry Ellis Invitational 12 p.m.

Larry Ellis Invitational 12 p.m.

Dayton 11 a.m.

Dayton 12 p.m.

Men’s Tennis

Holy Cross 1 p.m.

Women’s Tennis

Rhode Island 1 p.m.

Softball Each week, The Fordham Ram’s Sports section honors two athletes for their on-field performances as their “Athletes of the Week.”

a 31-year-old lifetime Major League Soccer (MLS) player, whose goal-scoring prowess has slowed down in recent seasons.

On the other hand, Ferreira is a bright young talent who’s tallied five goals and an assist in just six games to start the MLS season. He’s earned a call-up in the last two qualifying windows, scoring against Panama in March. While Zardes’ window with the USMNT may be closing, Ferreria has played his way into legitimate contention to be the starting striker in Qatar.

While none of these options necessarily jump off the page, there are talented players in this group who can do a job upfront.

If the World Cup was tomorrow, Ferreira would probably start, but November is a long way away. Players will fall in and out of form between now and then.

To a certain extent, U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter will likely pick the player in the best form right before the tournament. The striker position is definitely a major weakness for the USMNT, and fans can only hope that someone will emerge from the pack in the coming months to claim the striker position as their own.

Varsity Calendar

Women’s Track & Field

Fordham Men’s Tennis had a strong week, and junior Toi Kobayashi was front and center in the 4-1 victory over Lafayette College. Kobayashi won his singles match 6-2 and 6-0. He also won his doubles match with Jofre Segarra 6-3.

Toi Kobayashi Junior Men’s Tennis

April 13, 2022

Hofstra 6 p.m.

St. Josephs 11 a.m.

St. Josephs 12/2:30 p.m.

Men’s Golf

Yale Spring Invitational

Women’s Rowing

Kerr Cup 7:30 a.m.

Sunday April 17

Monday April 18

Tuesday April 19

Army 3 p.m.

SPORTS

April 13, 2022

Golf Falters at Lafayette

By CHRIS HENNESSY STAFF WRITER

The Fordham golf team continued their season as they traveled to Hellertown, Pennsylvania this weekend for the Abarta Coca-Cola Invitational, hosted by Lafayette College. The Rams finished in a tie for 16th place in the team competition, 31 shots behind the winners, the Iona Gaels.

Fordham struggled from the bottom of their lineup once again.

Despite being led by junior P.J. O’Rourke’s under par round, the Rams shot the worst round of the day on Monday with a 305 (+17). O’Rourke’s tie for fifth place came thanks to a two-under final round on Monday. He finished just one-under on the tournament, five shots behind Justin Burkhamer from Iona College.

The next person on the scoreboard is senior Ryan Davis, who finished T-72 with a +10 cumulative score. He shot a score of 75 on Monday, a very respectable round for the senior. Freshman Jake Mrva finished T-80 with a score of +11. His first-round 77 ties for his career low at Fordham and his two-round score of 155 is his best to this point. In a tie for 94th place were juniors Nicholas Manning and John Kryscio, who both shot +16 over the two days. They shot matching 78s on Sunday and 82s on Monday. It was a tough week again for the captain, Manning,

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The Rams struggled on the course in Pennsylvania last weekend. and last year’s stud Kryscio.

On the leaderboard, Fordham is tied with Niagara University and Lafayette’s B team in 16th place, only ahead of College of the Holy Cross and Canisius College. The 305 on Monday dropped them out of 13th place into the bottom five. They lost to more Atlantic 10 competition in St. Bonaventure University by 12 shots and Rhode Island University by 22 shots. Losing to the Bonnies is particularly rough as they were one of the teams that leapfrogged the Rams on Monday. The Rams have yet to beat any of their A-10 competition this spring, as they added another loss to St. Joseph’s University last week at Columbia University.

As for the rest of the tournament, Burkhamer went wire-to-wire with matching scores of 69 to take the crown. The lowest round of the

week was shot by Mount St. Mary’s University’s Michael Robinson, who shot a 66 on Monday to finish under par for the event. The six-under score launched him 47 spots up the leaderboard into a tie for fifth with O’Rourke.

The A-10 was well-represented in the top 15. Brandon Gillis from Rhode Island finished even par, tied for ninth with Bonaventure’s Danny Gianniny. Rhode Island also had Bryson Richards finish T-11 with a score of +2.

Next week, the Rams head to the Yale Spring Invitational in New Haven, Connecticut. It marks their final scheduled event before the A-10 Championship at the end of April.

The confidence they have now needs to continue to improve in order to better their performance last year in Orlando, Florida.

Knicks Finish Disappointing Season

By MICHAEL CALAMARI CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The New York Knicks 2022 season came to a close Sunday night versus the Toronto Raptors, finishing 11th in the Eastern Conference with a 37-45 and on the outside of the playoff picture. After a 2021 season that saw New York place fourth in the Eastern Conference, the 2022 campaign was nothing short of a disappointment. Nevertheless, a season that seemed to be a waste might have a light at the end of the tunnel.

Prior to the start of the season, a lot of hope surrounded the franchise. A successful offseason saw them bring in veteran three-point sharpshooter Evan Fournier on a four-year, $78 million deal and four time All-Star Kemba Walker to run the point guard position.

However, the mix of the new acquisitions with the 2021 returners never seemed to quite click.

After starting their season 5-2, New York would end November with a 11-11 record. After that, a disastrous December saw them lose seven out of nine games to start the month, falling well below .500, a mark they would never get back to for the rest of the year. The lowest of the lows came towards the second half of the season where New York won just three games over a 20-game stretch from Jan. 17 to March 4, putting them well on their way to missing the playoffs.

The question now becomes, how could a team ranked fourth in the Eastern Conference fall six spots lower in the standings in one year? In 2021, the Knicks were a team built by hustle and defense, ranking third in defensive

COURTESY OF TWITTER

2022 had underwhelming success for the New York Knicks. rating across the NBA. Just one year later, that mark dropped to 10th. While a rather small dropoff, the offense struggled mightily to make up for the defensive setback. The Knicks 2021 All-Star Julius Randle saw a serious regression in 2022, as his field goal percentage, three point percentage, rebounds per game, assists per game and points per game all fell well below his 2021 marks.

In addition, signing Walker and Fournier also failed to pan out.

Walker, coming off averaging 19.3 PPG with Boston, put up a career low PPG mark in New York. Meanwhile, Fournier posted a career low FG percentage and struggled to be consistent all season long.

With underwhelming performances from their most highly touted players, a lack of scoring would become their biggest downfall, ending the season in the bottom five in offensive production across the NBA. Although the season was riddled with disappointments, the young core of the Knicks gives hope to a bright future for the organization. Third year point guard RJ Barrett finished with 20.0 PPG on the year including 11 30+ point performances. Towards the end of the season, the 21-year-old became the heartbeat of the Knicks, averaging over 24 PPG after the All-Star Break.

Aside from Barrett, second year

standout stars Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley provide further hope for fans. Toppin and Quickley were best known as spark plugs off the bench throughout the season, but combined for 76 points in the season finale to send a message to fans that they have the potential to be so much more than originally intended.

Barrett, Quickley and Toppin highlight a group of Knicks all under the age of 25 looking to bounce back in 2023. Along with them, center Mitchell Robinson (who had 20 double-doubles in 2022), 22 year old mid-season acquisition Cam Reddish, as well as rookies Deuce McBride and Jericho Sims all add further depth to an already extensive young core.

“It’s huge for us. Our young guys all stepped in this year and played well at different times,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said after their final game Sunday night. “But we know we gotta make a big step this summer, so we’re gonna need everyone to be in there, making a commitment.”

As the Knicks 2022 season finally comes to an end, the organization may have a better idea of the franchise’s direction now more than ever. With clear problems emerging that need to be addressed and a young group of budding stars that can help them do so, the Knicks disappointing season may have a silver lining.

Page 17

Varsity Scores & Stats 8 3

Baseball Fordham Massachusetts

5 8

Fordham Kent State

1 6

Fordham Massachusetts

5 7

Fordham Kent State

2 0

Fordham Massachusetts

7 8

Fordham Columbia

3 16

Softball Fordham Manhattan

Men’s Soccer Spring Schedule Fordham Marist

3 0

Men’s Track & Field Metropolitan Championship

Day 1: T-5th (11 pts.)

Day 2: T6th/15 teams (54 pts.)

Men’s Tennis Fordham Lafayette

4 1

Men’s Golf Abarta Coca-Cola Invitational Day 1: 13th/20 teams

Women’s Track & Field Metropolitan Championship

Day 1: 1st (52 pts.)

Day 2: 1st (152 pts.)

Women’s Tennis Fordham N.C. Central

5 2

Rowing Knecht Cup Fordham No Team Scoring –Compiled by Maddie Bimonte

News & Notes Garett Brown Receives Atlantic 10 Player of the Week Freshman Garett Brown kicked off his Fordham Golf career last week at the Columbia’s Spring Invite in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, with massive success, as he received the Atlantic 10 Player of the Week accolade. In his first ever collegiate competition Brown recorded back-to-back scores of 79 to place fourth on his team, as the Rams ultimately finished 11th in the tournament.

Rams Swimmers Named to Academic All Conference Team Last Thursday, the Atlantic 10 Conference named two Fordham swimmers to the Academic All-Conference team for Swimming and Diving. Junior Clare Culver and sophomore Alex Wilhelm received their first ever nomination to the All-Conference team.

Culver wrapped up her season with a nomination to the Second Team All-A-10 in the 1650 freestyle at the A-10 Championship this year, with a new school record of 16:39.94. Additionally, she set the 1,000 freestyle school record during that race as well with a time of 10:06.07. During the 2022 season, Wilhem was a two-time A-10 Rookie of the Week and Fordham’s top performer at this year’s A-10 Championship. He placed fourth in the 200 individual medley with a school record time of 1:47.21.

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SPORTS

Page 18

Nets Earn Postseason Berth

By JACK ROCHE STAFF WRITER

As the NBA regular season concludes, it’s difficult to pick a team with a more hectic timeline than the Brooklyn Nets. At one point the preseason favorites to lead the NBA in wins according to Vegas, the Nets barely squeaked into the Play-In Tournament, fighting for seeding up until the final game of the year.

It was a season like no other.

Kyrie Irving dominated headlines before play even began, becoming one of the most prominent voices in sports who spoke out against the COVID-19 vaccine. As a result of his choice to not get vaccinated, he was unable to join the Nets due to New York City mandates and was not with the team all throughout 2021. As a result, the Nets grew desperate for offensive firepower, placing heavy minutes and stress on the team’s stars.

James Harden averaged 37.0 minutes per game, the highest volume he’d seen since his 2015-16 campaign in Houston.

Kevin Durant saw this same effect, playing 37.2 minutes per game, his highest average since the 2013-14 season with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

As a result, he’d suffer an MCL sprain in mid-January, forcing him to miss 21 consecutive games.

In an 82-game season, the Nets trotted out 43 different starting lineups. This was highlighted on December 18, with Brooklyn starting Patty Mills, Kessler Edwards, Cam Thomas, David Duke Jr. and

Blake Griffin. Mills was the only player to average over 25 minutes per game and the team’s bench was composed of players on 10-day contracts. Notably absent from this lineup was Harden and Durant, two out of a whopping 10 members of the team placed in health and safety protocols. As COVID-19 surged through the Nets locker room, General Manager Sean Marks made the eventual decision to accommodate Irving as a part-time player, still unable to meet the vaccine requirements to play in New York.

“We’ve seen the large minutes our guys have had to endure and play, and we’ve got to look at what’s best for the team over the course of the season,” Marks told reporters, citing this as a main reason in welcoming Irving back to the team.

As the trade deadline approached, rumors grew louder that star guard Harden was unhappy in Brooklyn. On February 10, Brooklyn pulled the trigger, sending Harden and Paul Millsap to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and two first-round draft picks.

This was seen as a massive haul for both sides. However, without Harden in the lineup everyday and Durant sidelined to injury, the Nets would plummet in the standings. From November 18 until December 31, Brooklyn possessed the best record in the East. Without both of these players, the Nets dropped 11 straight games starting in late January.

With the chaos that had

ensued throughout the course of the year, they couldn’t have picked a better time to hit their stride. Durant rejoined the team on March 3. While a few more weeks would pass, on March 27, Irving played his first game at the Barclays Center after New York City expanded its vaccine exemption to city-based entertainers.

In 29 games, Irving matched his career high in scoring, averaging 27.4 points per game.

Durant was just shy of the 30-point mark on the season, averaging 29.9 points per game across 55 contests. Brooklyn finished the season on a fourgame win streak, clinching the #7 seed in the East and hosting the first play-in Game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Nets defeated the Cavs 115-108, with Irving leading the way with 34 points and 12 assists. Durant also contributed in a big way, tallying 25 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. When it mattered most in a must win game, Brooklyn’s stars came out to shine.

With the win, the Nets advance to face the #2 seeded Boston Celtics in a best-of-7 series, who Brooklyn is just 1-3 against this season.

The Nets season has shown us some of the highest highs and lowest lows. While it has underperformed its expectations as the best team in the league, everyday it is looking more and more like Brooklyn is here to stay as they position themselves for a deep playoff run. The Boston series will be the true test of where this team stands and if its built to last in the playoffs.

April 13, 2022

The Best Booth in Baseball

By RYAN OLSON CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Regardless of what team you root for, you should tune into the SNY booth to share a laugh and learn something you didn’t know about the game of baseball.

Following an active offseason, there is palpable excitement brewing in Queens for the New York Mets and their fans. The much-anticipated return of twotime Cy Young winner Jacob DeGrom and the arrival of Max Scherzer give the Mets the best one-two punch in all of baseball. Hopefully, this translates to a playoff berth and a pennant run for a team that has not won a World Series since 1986. Two members of the ’86 championship club are continuing to use their baseball experience and love for the Mets to interact with fans on a nightly basis. For the past 17 years, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling have worked in the Mets TV booth alongside playby-play announcer Gary Cohen.

A lifelong Mets fan, Cohen is the glue that holds the booth together. You probably know him for his iconic catchphrase, “it’s outta here” whenever a player hits a home run. The Queens native grew up just a few short miles from Shea Stadium. He fell in love with the family-oriented atmosphere associated with the Mets and their fans rather than the historic grandeur of their crosstown rivals.

Cohen knows everything there is to know about the Mets and their history. When reminiscing about the past during a broadcast, you can always count on Cohen to recall an obscure fact

that would be a head-scratcher to most. His extensive knowledge of the Mets is unmatchable.

Alongside Cohen, Hernandez and Darling bring insightful analysis to the broadcast, stemming from their playing days on the diamond. An eleven-time Gold Glove winner, Hernandez is best known for his slick glove at first base. In fact, Hernandez’s defensive pedigree has given rise to his nickname, Mr. Fundies.

What makes Hernandez great is his “tell it like it is” mentality. He gives credit where credit is due, but he doesn’t hesitate to call a player out when he makes a mistake.

Mets fans of young and old have fallen in love with Hernandez as both a player and a broadcaster.

His sense of humor brings the broadcast to life. Additionally, Cohen and Darling like to rank on Hernandez, whether it be about his beloved cat or extravagant fur coat.

As for Darling, he spent nine years in Queens as a player. During that span, he won 99 games and appeared in one All-Star game. His time on the hill enables him to draw on things that only a pitcher would know: mechanics and routine.

Over the years, the team of Cohen, Hernandez and Darling have made a name for themselves in the broadcasting world.

In fact, a 2020 survey conducted by readers of The Athletic ranked the SNY booth as the best in baseball. This doesn’t come as a surprise to those who tune in to Mets games on a nightly basis. Mets fans feel as though the broadcasting booth is a core part of the team.

Student Athlete Column: The Mark I’ve Made

By KALEY BELL ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR EMERITA

I remember when I first started this column and was hoping to add something new to the newspaper. I was only a freshman, and I thought I had so many new ideas and perspectives that I could add to the Ram. I had emailed the sports editor at the time and let him know how excited I was to be able to start something new for the paper. The editor emailed me back and basically said, “We’ll see how this works on the paper, but it will likely be only once a month.” This was not the answer I was expecting, but I accepted it and let it happen.

Writing in high school was different from writing in college because everything I wrote seemed less important than everything else in the paper. I was writing about my experiences on a team, my transition into college and college athletics and everything that came with being away from home. I believed that my work was insignificant compared to the big news stories that were coming out every week during a time when the news cycle was hectic. That was until I submitted my last column for the volume when the sports editor thanked me for all my hard work and

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Senior Kaley Bell says an emotional goodbye to The Fordham Ram after four years of contribution. noted how my work has really impressed him.

From then on I became confident in what I was writing. I believed that I was impacting someone even if it was just my editor. However, when that sports editor left, I was unsure about the direction that my column would go in. I had met the new sports editor who was unsure if I was even a sports writer. I remember going into that first meeting being asked to move because there was a special meeting that was going

on, but the editor had not realized that I was supposed to be a part of that meeting. I took that and kept writing. It wasn’t his fault that I seemed out of place, but I felt out of place and was ashamed to say that was a sign that I did not belong in such a space.

However, I kept writing.

Consistency was always something that I took pride in and tried to maintain in everything I did. Discipline and consistency, both big tenets of my track career, had translated

into this column that I wanted to last for a long time.

The entirety of my sophomore year, I would write, and the new editor had made this column into something new.

The addition of other athletes to the column was a factor that really changed what the sports section was. Now, other athletes were looking at the newspaper and the website as they would see their own writing in there as well.

Then, COVID-19 hit and production was put to a stop.

However, I kept writing.

I wrote mostly in a space that is probably lost in the worldwide internet, but it was published and it was consistent. It was something that gave me peace during a time of uncertainty and change.

Then, we came back to inperson classes, and the Ram had transitioned to online production.

It was during this time that I had thought that I could try and make more of an impact than I already had. I applied to be an assistant sports editor and, thankfully, got the position. Last year was an interesting year to be a part of the sports section team as we battled many challenges, and I learned a lot from the whole staff. I did not stop writing during my time on staff.

I’m pretty sure this time marks my last student-athlete column, and therefore my last time publishing for the Ram. This column had become something that I looked forward to writing because it gave me consistency and confidence to get my voice out there. I’m glad other athletes have been able to use this space, and I hope that it continues to be used to highlight the multifaceted lives of students, athletes and student-athletes. Thank you for reading.

SPORTS

April 13, 2022

Men’s Basketball Lands Angel Montas

By THOMAS AIELLO ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Kyle Neptune and company have been wasting no time in rebuilding the Fordham men’s basketball team, as they landed their third recruit in Angel Montas. He was first offered by the Rams in September 2021.

Montas, a 6’5”, 210-pound wing, hails from Life Christian Academy in Kissimmee, Florida. He is rated as a three star recruit and had offers from the University of Dayton, University of Illinois, Iona College, University of Tennessee and Southern Methodist University.

He joins Will Richardson and Romad Dean in the 2022 recruiting class for the Fordham Rams.

Assistant coach Ronald Ramon made the trip to visit Montas and was able to oust bigger programs to land him.

“I think we just connected with Angel and the players we brought in, and I think they feel comfortable with the staff. They can see that we are about developing guys, we show the relationship we have internally and that translates into our players.” said Ramon. “I think that’s one of the things that they look for; someone that they can relate to not only on the court but anything off the court and build a relationship that will last not only four years but one that will last a lifetime.”

Montas made waves playing with Hansel Emmanuel, a onearmed basketball player who formed a terrifying duo at Life Christian Academy and took the internet by storm.

Montas played his Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball with SOH Elite with Emmanuel by his side. He scored 4,000 career points by the end of his high

school career, on top of averaging 34.3 points, 8.4 rebounds, 3.4 steals and 2.7 assists per game as a senior, and was selected to the Sunshine Independent Athletic Association (SIAA) first-team.

Ramon’s Dominican roots were a big help in the recruitment of Montas. Ramon played his college basketball at the University of Pittsburgh, and a graduate of All Hallows High School in the Bronx, but he represented the Dominican Republic playing on their national team.

“I saw him at one of the AAU events in Orlando when I first saw him. I played with his uncle on the (Dominican) national team, so I knew him since he was younger.

And you could just see the potential he had.”

Montas’ game revolves around his physical style of play. He has a knack for blasting any and all comers in the paint. He loves going north to south and is crafty with his movements by using a variety of finishes around the rim. Fordham looks for players that can do a lot of different things, and Montas is no exception.

The jumpshot is something that goes a long way nowadays in basketball. If you can shoot, you will be able to find a spot to play on any team. Montas has very nice looking form from three, and as previously mentioned, adds a mid-range element which is always a plus. He also includes a rapidly improving handle plus an understanding of when to give the ball up and make the right play.

Player comparisons are not exactly easy to judge, and throughout the history of Fordham Men’s Basketball the concept of wings is quite extensive, but Montas’ skillset

might be the first of his kind to enter Fordham's legendary program.

“Angel is more like a hybrid type of guy, he can play two, three, or four. He likes to score and get to the basket, very athletic and likes to create his own shot,” Ramon added. “He’s more of an open floor guy on the break, two or three dribbles he can get to the basket where he’s more comfortable.”

In terms of physical build, he draws to the likes of former Rams Steve Samuels, Michael Haynes and Teremun Johnson: the height range of 6’5”-6’7” and all weighing north of 200 pounds.

Montas, Richardson and Dean will make immediate impacts as freshmen and look to do something that hasn’t been done since 2019: make Atlantic 10 all-rookie teams as Fordham Rams. The last Ram to accomplish that feat was Nick Honor, who ended up transferring to Clemson.

All the tools mentioned are what Neptune is looking for in his players: dynamic ball handlers who are versatile on defense with a shooting touch as the tertiary element.

Fordham was also in need of guard play following abrupt departures and graduations. They did manage to stay at .500 with Antrell Charton and Josh Colon-Navvaro doing most of the work, along with Darius Quisenberry limping through the final stretch.

Fordham’s recruiting buzz has been exceptional to start Neptune's era, and now the Rams look to brighter days ahead in the Bronx and bring the program back to the winning ways of old. And while the transfer portal may be a big tool to build up a program, freshman can help create something sustainable for a better long term product.

Women’s Tennis Regains Momentum

By LOU ORLANDO STAFF WRITER

The Fordham women’s tennis team swung momentum around their way, netting a pair of road wins to sweep the weekend.

Coming off back-to-back losses in the midst of a lengthy road trip, they beat North Carolina Central University and their Atlantic 10 rival, Davidson College, leaving them poised to finish the season strong.

Fordham kicked off the weekend with a 5-2 win over North Carolina Central. The pairing of senior Valeriya Deminova and junior Avery Aude improved to 8-0 in doubles play on the season with their match win, while the pairing of graduate student Carlota Casasampere-Escoda and junior Rachelle Yang won their match to secure the doubles point.

Fordham also came out on top in four of the six singles matches, with Casasampere-Escoda, Yang, senior Nicole Li and freshman Lorraine Bergmann all earning wins.

The Rams remained in North Carolina to take on Davidson on Sunday, a team that sat in fourth place in the A-10, as they looked to leap past Fordham in the standings. Fordham remained atop Davidson, battling for the 4-3 win behind some excellent singles play.

Despite dropping the doubles point to the Wildcats, the Rams

once again got four wins in singles with Aude, Deminova, Casasampere-Escoda and Bergmann each notched wins.

Sunday’s win was their first against an A-10 opponent, a strong bounceback after the Rams dropped their first match in-conference to the University of Massachusetts (UMass) the previous Sunday.

This weekend as a whole was an impressive showing from a Fordham team that was looking to avoid a second-half collapse. With just three games left to play in the regular season.

Fordham sits at 10-4, maintaining third place in the A-10. UMass is directly ahead of them at 12-4, and while it’s unlikely Fordham will be able to leap them this late in the season, they would have a chance if Fordham won out and UMass lost their last three.

UMass defeated Fordham 5-2 earlier in the season, so in the event of a tie, the tiebreaker would go to UMass.

The weekend sweep places the Rams firmly in the driver’s seat as they look to close out the final game of their six-game road trip against the University of Rhode Island (URI). It’s a second straight A-10 opponent for the Rams, and it will mark their last in-conference game before the A-10 tournament.

Fordham should have the edge

against URI that sits two games under .500 at 8-10. They’ve seen somewhat better times of late, going 2-1 after a seven-game losing streak that left them winless in March.

Still, Fordham is a more complete team and should be in a good position to secure their second straight conference win. Fordham and URI will matchup in Kingston, Rhode Island, Saturday at 1 p.m.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Junior Avery Aude.

Page 19

Women’s Track & Field Wins Manhattan Invitational

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

This past weekend, Fordham Track & Field went to Randall’s Island to compete in the Manhattan Invitational. It was a historic weekend for the women’s team as they won the invitational for the first time ever, while the men’s team finished sixth.

For the Fordham women, day one saw several impressive individual performances that catapulted them into first place. In the 3,000m steeplechase, sophomore Maddy Kopec took first place with a time of 11:52.90, followed by fellow sophomore Clodagh McGroary behind her in second place at 12:03.94.

The Rams also took home three of the top four spots in the 10,000m run. Freshman Caroline McDonagh won at 38:12.81, while juniors Alexandra Thomas and Nathania Tan finished in third and fourth place, respectively.

In the field, Fordham also received point-scoring performances from graduate student Tiffany Hanna and senior Casey Metzler in the hammer throw. Hanna placed second with a school-record distance of 47.09m, while Metzler finished fourth at 46.08m.

In the 15-team invitational, the women built up an 18-point lead after of day one. With 52 points in first place, Fordham was comfortably ahead of Manhattan College (34 points) in second, St. John’s University (27.5 points) in third and Rutgers University (18 points) in fourth.

Day two saw more of the same in the relay events. The 4x800m relay team of sophomore Marin Bogulski, senior Jilli Jones, junior Taylor Mascetta and senior Bridget Alex finished first with a time of 9:28.86.

Fordham also won the 4x100m

relay, with freshman Sarah Galvin, graduate student Kathryn Kelly, senior Dominique Valentine and junior Kyla Hill coming in at 47.67.

Individual scorers on day two included Kelly, who won the long jump event with a distance of 5.76m and placed third in the 200m dash. Hanna experienced more success in the field on day two, finishing second in the discus throw with another school record distance of 45.09m.

These additional scoring tallies gave the Rams a total of 152 points, 36 points clear of Columbia University in second place. The victory also meant that the Fordham women completed the Metropolitan Championship trifecta, as the team won the indoor and cross country championship earlier this year.

The men’s teams experienced less success, although they still had a positive showing at the championship by finishing sixth out of 15 teams.

Notable finishes for the Rams came in the 10,000m, where junior Ryan Fahey placed second at 33:40.40 and the 1500m run, with junior Colin Flood coming in third with a season-best time of 3:58.62.

Fordham took home a first-place finish in 4x800 relay, behind sophomore Daniel Asher, junior Erik Brown, Strzelinski and junior Eric Jacobson coming in at 7:50.52.

The final tally for the Fordham men was 54 points, well behind Manhattan in first place but ahead of schools like Marist College, Iona College and Rutgers. Notable finishes for the Rams came in the 10,000m, where junior Ryan Fahey placed second at 33:40.40 and the 1500m run.

The Rams are back this weekend at the Larry Ellis Invitational in Princeton, New Jersey.

Fordham Rowing Heads to New Jersey

By ANDREW FALDUTO STAFF WRITER

The Fordham rowing team rigged their boats for the Knecht Cup on the Cooper River this past weekend. The weather conditions in New Jersey were somewhat miserable, as the two-day regatta was marred by gray clouds, wind and intermittent showers. Fordham entered a seven boats in this massive event, taking on a sea of schools including Atlantic 10 rivals George Mason University and the University of Rhode Island.

The second Varsity Eight found success in Fordham’s entries, opening with a second-place finish in their heat, then placing fifth in the event’s grand final.

The team had two other boats of eight competing on the water, with the Varsity Eight advancing to the semifinals and subsequently finding itself in the third and final event. The premier boat ended up taking third in their final outing, notably finishing ahead of George Mason. The Novice Eight unfortunately failed to advance, placing fourth in their heat.

The remaining boats in the lineup were boats of four, the Varsity One of which opened the regatta with their heat. They

placed third and advanced to the petite final, where they took home a respectable third. The second Varsity Four managed to place fourth in their heat, just barely missing an advancement to the finals race. The Lightweight Four, a speciality event, was able to advance to the grand final, coming away with sixth place. Finally, the Novice Four found great success, just edging out the University of Pittsburgh and winning the race outright.

Unfortunately, their momentum slowed as they placed sixth in their final.

Team morale took a small dip; the general consensus seemed to be that the Rams could have performed better, especially considering their strong start in the Jesuit Invitational.

However, considering the weeks leading up to the race were plagued with injuries and COVID-19, the team was able to pull together and find some success.

The regatta also allowed for less seasoned rowers on the team to get real experience, an investment sure to pay dividends over time.

The team returns on April 16, to compete in the Kerr Cup on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania next Saturday.

SPORTS

Page 20

April 13, 2022

Rams Claim Victory in Battle of the Bronx, Split against Kent State

By THOMAS AIELLO ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

The annual “Battle of the Bronx” is the legendary rivalry matchup between Fordham University and Manhattan College. It is famouswith both schools deadlocked in a fierce rivalry. For the first time since 2010, Fordham Softball met the Jaspers on the diamond. The rain might have stopped the doubleheader on Tuesday, but clear skies allowed both teams to take the field for one game on Wednesday at Manhattan College.

Fordham got off to a hot start in the top of the first inning with a bit of small ball to start the standalone game. After a walk in her first at-bat of the day, graduate student Brianna Pinto stole second base and slid into third on a sacrifice fly by freshman Allie Clark. Fellow graduate student Rachel Hubertus knocked in Pinto with a sacrifice groundout to get the Rams on the board 1-0 with an early lead.

Hubertus is on her way to make history for herself, as she recorded the 108th RBI of her career and is now closing in on the top 10 in career RBI’s at Fordham.

Manhattan tied it in the bottom of the first inning with junior Marika Deemer hitting an RBI single to score a runner. Later in the fifth inning, the Jaspers added another run off the bat of senior Megan Gillooley to make the score 2-1.

The Rams changed that with

the bat of junior Devon Miller, who slapped an RBI single to drive in senior Julia Martine to start the sixth. That was followed up by a two run double hit by graduate student Kelly Bright allowing Fordham to take the lead, 4-2 in the sixth.

Clark made her mark with her first career dinger, a three run shot that extended Fordham’s lead to 7-3 in the sixth. Martine followed Clark’s lead with a solo shot of her own, her eighth of the year and the eighth run of the day for the Rams. Manhattan did end up getting a run back, but it didn’t matter as Fordham’s pitching shut down the Jaspers to take home the victory.

The combination of sophomore Bailey Enoch, freshman Emilee Watkins and senior Makenzie McGrath came together to allow two earned runs and struck out seven batters on the day. Watkins walked away with the win, the second of her career, and struck out three batters of her own.

Fordham returned to Bahoshy Field on Saturday for a double header special against Kent State University, splitting against the Golden Flashes in what was a tale of two games.

Game one saw both pitchers go the distance and kept things scoreless through four innings.

However, Kent State changed that in the top of the fifth, as Madison

Hershberger and Emily Lippe produced RBI singles that put Kent State out in front 2-0. In the bottom half of the inning, the Rams got one run back via a huge Miller solo home run.

But in the seventh, Kent State flashed four runs to put the game away 6-1, with Jessica LeBeau going the full seven innings with nine strikeouts and only one walk.

In game two, Fordham once again locked in a deadly duel with the Golden Flashes, as McGrath held Kent State at bay with her first career complete game shutout.

McGrath induced nine groundouts and seven force outs. Kent State’s Anilese Kelly was equally impressive with six innings of

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

The Rams proved to be the rulers of the Bronx with their win over Manhattan College.

two run ball and six strikeouts, but those two runs proved to be the deciding factor in game two.

In the fifth, Hubertus stepped up to the plate and sent her 13th home run of the year to give the Rams a 1-0 lead. This was her 35th career hit as she now sits fifth all time on the Fordham career home run charts, tied with Katie Davis and Erin Fisher. She also sits 10th all time for most home runs in a single season, with only seven more needed to tie the record of 20 home runs in a single year which was set back in 2013 and 2014 both being hit

by Elise Fortier.

Martine followed Hubertus in the very next at bat with her ninth home run of the year, giving Fordham's McGrath a 2-0 cushion heading into the sixth.

McGrath got help from her fielders, as junior Michaela Carter made an over-the-head catch in left field to help put the Golden Flashes away. Fordham sealed the deal in game two and walked away 2-1 for the week. The team now sits at 17-15 overall and 7-3 record at Bahoshy field.

The Rams are back in action on Wednesday, April 13, against the Hofstra University Pride on the road in a standalone game. They will then return home on Friday for a three-game set against the Saint Joseph’s University Hawks.

They are currently sitting at a 1317 overall record but boast a 9-5 record in A-10 conference games.

Baseball Swept in Massachusetts, Falls against Columbia

By MADDIE BIMONTE ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Struggles continue for the Rams as the Fordham men’s baseball team suffered another series loss at the hands of the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst in a three-game set last weekend. Fordham’s attempts to rally late in the games fell short as the Minutemen dominated at the plate. In hopes to snap out of a five game losing streak, the Rams took on Columbia University yesterday, ultimately dropping yet another game, 16-3.

In the first game against UMass, sophomore pitcher Cameron Knox gave up the first run of the game in the fourth with Mike Gervasi hitting a two-run home run. Knox’s pitching woes only continued throughout the inning, as the Minutemen put up six total runs to make the score 8-0.

The Rams scored their first run in the top of the seventh with junior third baseman Zach Selinger coming home off a groundout to the second baseman courtesy of senior center fielder Jason Coules.

Trouble sparked in the eighth for freshman relief pitcher Beau Rottmann as he loaded the bases.

Ultimately, the Rams managed to get out of the inning safely, stranding all three Minutemen.

A last ditch attempt from the Rams was underway in the top of the ninth as Coules kicked off the scoring. With a single to center field, he drove in Selinger,

and later went on to steal second base. After two consecutive walks, junior pinch hitter Will Findlay walked home. Graduate student shortstop C.J. Vazquez and freshman left fielder Cian Sahler wrapped up the inning as they each drove in one run; however, the Rams’ scoring abruptly stopped there.

Fordham dropped the first game 8-5, looking toward Sunday’s double header to secure a win. UMass once again struck first, this time in the first inning. Sophomore starting pitcher Brooks Ey surrendered four runs before finishing the inning, stranding one Minuteman.

Quick baserunning from senior catcher Andy Semo helped the Rams get a runner in scoring position, perfectly setting up Coules to send him home on an RBI single in the second.

UMass extended their lead to 6-2 during the fourth with another two run home run—this time from Drew DeMartino. Fordham responded in the sixth as Semo scored on an error from the Minutemen, and a sacrifice fly from Coules brought in Selinger to cut the Minutemen’s lead to two, 6-4.

DeMartino proved to be an issue for the Rams pitchers as he added another run to UMass’ lead, but their hitting slowed down for the next few innings.

Fordham once again attempted to regain the lead in the eighth as Selinger scored off an RBI single from senior left fielder Jake Guercio. The Rams stopped their

campaign there, dropping game two with a final score of 7-5.

The last game of the series began promptly as game two of the Sunday doubleheader. Senior starting pitcher Cory Wall struggled from the get-go, giving up three runs in the bottom of the first before being replaced by junior Ben Kovel. The latter did not prove to be a drastic improvement as Kovel gave up three runs as well, before wrapping up the first inning with a 6-0 deficit.

Fordham got on the board in the third inning with a Selinger single driving in Findlay. The UMass pitcher and catcher combo of Jack Steele and Dylan Judd struggled, providing Fordham the opportunity to capitalize in the third. A wild pitch and passed ball scored Vazquez, and Steele gave up a three run home run directly after to freshman right fielder Sebastian Mexico, making the score 6-5, putting the Rams in a two run striking distance from the narrow lead.

Fordham took the lead in the fifth for the first time in the series as Semo’s RBI single scored Vazquez to tie, and Mexico’s RBI single allowed Selinger to run home, taking the lead 7-6.

UMass struck back quickly in the bottom of the fifth, evening the score at seven, and once again reclaiming the lead in the sixth with a bases loaded walk off graduate student relief pitcher Joseph Quintal, 8-7.

Both teams failed to add any

runs to their total for the rest of the game, causing the Rams to drop their fifth straight game with a score of 8-7.

The one game series against Columbia highlighted the Rams pitching issues as freshman starting pitcher Connor Haywood gave up four runs, causing a pitching change in just the second inning.

His replacement, Sahler, surrendered one run in the second, bringing the total to 5-0, in favor of Columbia. The third inning fared much better for Sahler, as he gave up no hits.

The Rams got on the board in the fourth, courtesy of an RBI double from sophomore shortstop Chris Genaro. Trouble occurred in the bottom of the fourth as Sahler fell apart on the mound, giving up four home runs to the Lions, bolstering the Columbia lead to 10-1.

Fordham managed to put up two more runs in the top of the sixth with sophomore first baseman Michael Taylor scoring on a wild pitch and a single from

Sahler brought the Rams total up to three.

Fordham pitchers all continued to give up runs to the Lions, putting a victory out of reach. Sophomore pitcher Jack Popolizio entered the game in the sixth and wild pitching scored Columbia’s Kyle Corso. With only one more out to go, Popolizio gave up another run to close out the inning, with a score of 13-3.

The rest of the game fared no better for the Rams as they surrendered three more runs, ultimately ending the game with a measly three runs, 16-3. The Rams are in the midst of their second longest losing streak of the season, previously snapping their nine game losing streak last month against the Siena College Saints.

As they deal with a struggling pitching rotation, the Rams are running out of time to make their season count. Fordham will be back in action against Dayton University on Thursday for a three game series.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Fordham continues to struggle as the season rolls on.