Volume 101 Issue 16

The Fordham Ram Volume 101, Issue 16

Serving The Fordham University Community Since 1918 FordhamRam.com

October 9, 2019

Fordham Files SJP Decision Appeal

Fordham Updates Media Policy

By HELEN STEVENSON

By ERICA SCALISE

In April of 2017, five students from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) brought a case against the university, claiming the institution violated its own policy by vetoing the Lincoln Center United Student Government (USG-LC) 2016 approval of the club. In August 2019, the club won its case in Awad, et al. v. Fordham University, requiring the university to recognize SJP as a university-sanctioned club.

Now, the university has filed a notice of appeal.

While Rev. Jospeh M. McShane, S.J., president of the university, declined to comment on matters of litigation, he confirmed that SJP is currently active on the Lincoln Center campus.

“Right now the club is up and functioning, mostly functioning downtown rather than uptown, and that’s fine,” said McShane.

In an email addressed to the Fordham community on Oct. 7, the university revealed its updated social media policy which aims to better support the university’s increased presence across platforms and respond to changes in the social media landscape, according to Bob Howe, assistant vice president for communications and special adviser to the president.

The updated policy, which supersedes the university’s Jan. 2011 policy, focuses on five topics, including: applicability and scope, content guidelines, reporting guidelines, official Fordham social media account recognition and faculty and staff personal social media accounts/ posts. It also adopts guidelines from the previous policy which asks that community members refrain from using profanity and from making personal attacks in any comments posted to the university's social media platforms.

Howe said he circulated the first draft of the proposal in July 2018.

“I had input from the Information Risk Management Board (which includes representatives from IT, Public Safety, Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, Finance and Enrollment); Legal Counsel; the Provost; the Cabinet; the Faculty Senate; and of course Father McShane,” said Howe.

The policy applies to all university employees, including faculty and staff, and to anyone posting content and comments to any official Fordham site, according to the email and Fordham News.

The policy states that “nothing [in it] should be construed as constraining speech on non-

PROJECTS EDITOR

NEWS EDITOR

SEE SJP, PAGE 5

JULIA COMERFORD/THE FORDHAM RAM

The McGinley Center addition will be complete in August 2021, barring any construction complications.

Rev. McShane Gives Insight Into McGinley Construction

By HELEN STEVENSON and SARAH HUFFMAN The once-green grass in front of the McGinley Student Center has been replaced with large, green panels obstructing the space from pedestrian view. In a little less than two years’ time, a four-story

extension purposed for student use will emerge above the walls.

According to Marco Valera, vice president for Facilities Management and vice president for Administration, construction will officially start in January 2020. The process is currently on-schedule, and, barring any complications, the building will be

ready for use by August 2021.

“Prior to construction we have prepared the site and are upgrading the utilities to support the new building,” he said.

Although no official floor plans are currently available to the public, Rev. Joseph M. SEE MCGINLEY, PAGE 5

University Partners With NY Giants

By ELIOT SCHIAPARELLI ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

“Large New York Style” slice, as indicated on its sign.

Fortunately for those who enjoyed it, Pugsley’s is only a few blocks from Crescent Avenue, giving those who live in the area a glimmer of hope that they would not have to wait until next year to have Pugsley's again.

The enjoyment did not solely come from those eating the pizza, but vendors giving away their pizza

Due to a new partnership between Fordham and the New York Giants, Fordham students now have the unique opportunity to intern and work closely with the NFL team. In the announcement of the partnership in early September Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university, told Fordham News that the partnership would open up opportunities in academics, community service and branding.

“Our identity has been tied to the gridiron since the 1920s, with Fordham’s ‘Seven Blocks of Granite’ dominating the sport in the 1930s, and John Mara is, of course, a distinguished Fordham Law alumnus,” said McShane.

“We are therefore pleased to deepen our family connection to the Giants and excited to enter a partnership with the team that will be mutually beneficial.”

The program features four total paid internships: one full

SEE PIZZA, PAGE 6

SEE GIANTS, PAGE 6

SEAN FINLAY/THE FORDHAM RAM

The second annual New York Pizza Festival took place on Crescent Avenue on Saturday, just blocks from the university.

Crescent Avenue Hosts Second Annual New York Pizza Festival

By SEAN FINLAY

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

When it hit noon on Saturday, Oct. 5, Crescent Avenue was flooded with pizza enthusiasts from near and far for the second annual New York Pizza Festival. Attendees came to try renowned pizza restaurants from all over the country.

Pizza artisans from Miami,

Las Vegas, Denver and even Naples, Italy set up shop to showcase their unique combinations of ingredients and their labored processes of creating what they believe to be the best slice.

Vendors included 25 pizza shops within the United States and five from Italy.

Pugsley’s Pizza, a restaurant popular among Fordham students, had a chance to showcase its classic

SEE MEDIA, PAGE 3

in this issue

Opinion

Page 7

New York’s War on the Homeless

Sports

Page 20

Women’s Soccer Wins Twice in Overtime

Culture

Page 17

Drink Responsibly: PlantBased Milks

NEWS

Page 2

PUBLIC SAFETY BRIEFS

October 9, 2019

The Provecho Project Hosts Kickoff Event Start-Up Provides Home-Cooked Meals

By CLAY WALTERS

Oct. 3 Campbell Hall 5:30 p.m.

The fire alarm was activated.

Public Safety and FDNY investigated the incident. They determined that occupants opened the door while cooking food, triggering the alarm.

Oct. 4 Faculty Memorial Hall 3:30 p.m.

A professor reported a computer tower as missing. Public Safety is investigating Oct. 6 Finlay Hall 2:15 a.m.

Public Safety was notified that a student had intentionally broken a basement window in Finlay hall. Public Safety identified the student. The matter was refered and the student was disciplined.

Oct. 7 Hughes Avenue 5:04 a.m.

A student reported to Public Safety that he was awakened by a sound in his bedroom. He saw a shadow and screamed. The person fled in an unknown direction. NYPD was notified and is investigating.

— Compiled by Sarah Huffman

Follow us on Twitter! @TheFordhamRam

ASSISTANT BUSINESS DIRECTOR

On Saturday, Oct. 5, roughly 150 students gathered to celebrate the launch of a Fordham-created startup known as The Provecho Project. The event included a diverse offering of free food made by Fordham students and music from well-known DJ artist FDVM. The Provecho Project, according to the start up's newly established website, aims to bring people together by sharing stories and home-cooked meals. Co-founders Joe Zoyhofski, GSB ’21, Liam Scott, FCRH ’21, Alex Tenbarge, GSB ’21, and Emily Leaman, GSB '20, created The Provecho Project during their freshman year at Fordham.

“We aim to bring more appreciation to the food we eat, those we share it with, and the magical moments created when we open our homes and hearts to each other,” its website reads.

The company's name was originally What's Cooking, but the founders found out the name was already registered as a business in New York. The company kept the same logos and business model, but changed its name to The Provecho Project.

According to Zoyhofski, "buen provecho" is a Spanish phrase that does not directly translate to English but roughly means, “enjoy your meal.”

In Spanish and Latino culture, this phrase is usually exchanged between the people dining and the person who prepared the meal, out of respect for the tradition of sharing meals. This name captures the values they hope all people bring to the table, said Zoyhofski.

“It is used to acknowledge who is around you and respecting the people that made the food,” said Zoyhofski. “Food is interesting, they say we are what we eat, but it’s a lot more than that - it’s how we eat, it’s where we eat. I think the new name better captures our values."

The launch party's offerings consisted of home-cooked meals made from recipes inspired by cultures from around the world.

“We set up around ‘Bro’s Hill’ outside of Walsh gate with decorations and food on the sidewalk, and around 4:30 people came and sampled food from different parts of the world,” Zoyhofski said. “The food was cooked by Fordham stu-

JENNIFER HOANG/ THE FORDHAM RAM

The Provecho Project hosted it's launch event in front of the so-called Bro's Hill. It served different food from around the

dents who shared how it was important to their culture.”

One attendee of the event, Muhammad Mazhar, GSB ’21, described the launch as a huge success.

“Seeing everyone enjoying cuisines from across the world and enjoying each other’s presence was truly an amazing thing to witness,” Mazhar said. “I enjoyed the incredible variety in dishes that everyone brought, ranging from kimchi salad to homemade hummus.”

According to Zoyhofski, his favorite part of the event was seeing everyone together sharing food and having a good time. He explained that all students are welcome to host and attend an event.

“If you want to host a provecho or meal, you would go on our website. You would say what you want to cook, how many people you want to have over, what your price per guest is,” he explained. “All these provechos are listed and you can view upcoming ones in your neighborhood, choose the ones you want to go.”

The idea came to Zoyhofski and his friends while they were eating Kraft Mac & Cheese and Pop-Tarts in their freshman dorm, experiencing homesickness and longing for a healthy home-cooked meal.

“It was so confusing to me at the

moment because you can do just about anything in the world in New York City or college except have a home-cooked meal with your neighbors,” Zoyhofski said. “But it’s something so simple and so important and something that has always been a part of my life growing up. I just want to make it easier for college students to have a homecooked meal while they are away at school.”

For Zoyhofski, The Provecho Project is all about bringing people together.

“When people host meals, you want to make sure they are safe with the people they are welcoming in, and also when you are going to a strangers home, you want to make sure you have a safe experience,” Zoyhofski said.

To ensure the safety of everyone attending a provecho, the new website requires each host to go through a brief application process.

According to Zoyhofski, it does not take long but does require basic food and kitchen safety knowledge.

“For people coming into homes, we are limiting it to just the college community, so register with a school email address or some proof of identity that you are a college student,” he said. “[It] really does take a special kind of person

to open their homes to the community and to put that kind of time, that’s why are so appreciative of the hosts that do this.”

One of these hosts include Esther Ruiz, FCRH ’21, who described it as one of the best memories from the year.

“There’s something so special about sharing a meal, especially one into which you put your time and care,” Ruiz said. “The smiles, laughs and wonderful conversations make the craziness of inviting so many people and having to whip up a meal after hours of classes so worth it.”

Zoyhofski said the advice he would give to Fordham students interested in creating their own startup is to “just start.”

Zoyhofski said that although it can, at times, be difficult to work on a start-up, the team that started Provecho always finds a way to keep the energy optimistic.

“It’s a life lesson,” Zoyhofski said.

“When you are going through a tough situation, hopefully have good people around you to lean on.”

Those interested in the The Provecho Project, can go to its website at provechoproject.com or follow @provechoproject on Instagram.

This Week at Fordham Thursday Oct. 10

Thursday Oct. 10

Friday Oct. 11

Friday Oct. 11

Sunday Oct. 13

Relay for Life 5K Walk/Run

Mimes and Mummers: All Shook Up Collins Auditorium 8:00 p.m .– 10:00 p.m.

Senior Week Blood Drive

McGinley Ballroom 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

El Grito de Lares Rep Your Heritage

Outdoors Club Anthony's Nose Hike

Colleges Against Cancer is holding its annual 5K Walk/Run at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday. The event starts at McGinley and will end around 6:15 p.m.

Relay for Life is a national fundraising event organized by the American Cancer Society.

The Mimes and Mummers are presenting their slot one fall musical, "All Shook Up." The show takes place in the '50s and features the music of Elvis Presley. Thursday night is free for Fordham students with ID.

The Red Cross is hosting a Blood Drive at Fordham. The event is in honor of Senior Week, but any student can participate. According to the organization, each donation could save up to three lives. New donors and walk-ins are welcome.

El Grito de Lares is hosting Rep Your Heritage, a celebration of Hispanic heritage and culture with food, music, dance and raffle. The event is in McGinley North Dining from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. El Grito promotes Latino heritage and culture.

The Outdoors Club is taking a group of students to hike in the lower Hudson Valley. The scenic hike offers views such as Bear Mountain and the New York City skyline. Students will arrive at the trail via Ram Van.

McGinley Center 5:15 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.

McGinley North Dining 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Cortlandt Manor, NY 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

NEWS

October 9, 2019

Page 3

College Republicans Discuss 2020 and Impeachment

By HELEN STEVENSON NEWS EDITOR

President Donald Trump is running for re-election in 2020, but he is not the only Republican on the ballot. Mark Sanford, former governor of N.C., Joe Walsh, former congressman from Ill., and William F. Weld, former governor of Mass. are also running for the Republican National Committee (RNC) nomination.

Although the sitting president has an advantage in the primaries, Timothy Kyle, FCRH ’21, president of College Republicans, said he is unsure whether or not the majority of club members will support Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

“The Fordham College Republicans are a big tent club – we represent all types of conservatives libertarians, and other right-leaning students,” he said. “Many in the club support Trump, and many do not.”

However, Vice President of College Republicans Olivia Ingrassia, FCRH ’21, said she is confident that a majority of the club members support the president’s reelection campaign.

Although the College Republicans have not officially endorsed any candidate for the 2020 election, Kyle and Ingrassia said they intend to support President Trump.

Ingrassia said she supports all the president’s actions regarding immigration policy and trade tariffs with China within the past two years and believes he has exposed

COURTESY OF RAM ARCHIVES

The College Republicans’ weekly meeting is on Thursdays at 1:15 p.m. in the basement of Hughes Hall.

corruption within the “ruling class” and mainstream media.

“The President spearheaded this anti-globalist, America First movement, riding a wave of populist discontent with the prevailing established order into the White House in 2016,” she said. “Unlike other members of his party, Trump is a war-time conservative who singlehandedly revived the Republican Party from its dying breed of openborders neo-conservatism.”

However, Kyle is not entirely satisfied with the president’s po-

sitions, particularly regarding gun legislation. Although President Trump has advocated for expanded background checks for gun owners in the past, it is reportedly unclear what his current position is.

“Personally, I am not entirely happy with many of the President’s actions and would prefer a Republican candidate who was stronger on civil liberties such as gun rights and protection from unreasonable search and seizure,” he said. “Despite this,

I recognize that President Trump is the best chance the Republican Party has to win in 2020.”

As of Oct. 8, the House Democrats are conducting an impeachment inquiry into the president for pressuring President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The investigation began after a government official filed a whistleblower complaint against the president.

However, Ingrassia and Kyle

believe the criminal investigation could be a positive thing for the president’s 2020 campaign.

Ingrassia refers to the inquiry as an attack by the “Deep State,” a conspiracy theory that suggests the government is secretly run and corrupted by a network of non-elected officials. Kyle said that those partial to concerns about the "Deep State" will likely be energized by the impeachment proceedings, which will act as confirmation of the president's allegations of wrongdoing.

“The so-called ‘whistleblower’ and those several government officials who gave him the information are conspirators within the ‘Deep State’ looking to undermine the President, because of their deep-seated political biases,” said Ingrassia. “If anything, this impeachment inquiry will only hurt the Democrats come 2020.”

In light of the current roster of Democratic Party candidates for 2020, Ingrassia and Kyle said they are confident that Trump will win re-election. They believe the Democratic Party has become “radical” and “extreme.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden is the only real competition, according to Kyle.

“I would like to see the President debate Mr. Biden, the Democratic frontrunner, who is by far the most moderate person running for the Democratic nomination and thus the realest threat to Trump,” he said. “A debate between them would be the only debate with any consequences for the race and thus the only debate worth holding.”

University Changes Policy to Support Media Presence Provides Guidlelines for Faculty and Staff Social Media FROM MEDIA, PAGE 1

University social media, nor other non-University print, broadcast, nor digital channels,” and encompasses, but is not limited

to, blogs (i.e., web-based journals) and microblogs (e.g., Tumblr), collaborative websites (e.g., Wikipedia, etc.), message boards, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook,

COURTESY OF RAM ARCHIVES

The new policy provides guidelines for online social media usage.

Twitter), podcasts (i.e., multimedia distributed over the internet), video sharing (e.g., YouTube) and photo sharing (e.g., Instagram, Snapchat, etc).

Only social media pages officially recognized by Fordham will be included in the official Fordham Social Media Registry according to the policy, and users must seek approval and guidance from the Office of University Communications if they wish to set up a social media account for official university business.

The policy also provides a list of guidelines for personal social media accounts for faculty and staff. According to the policy, the university does not seek to determine the appropriateness of content on faculty and staff ’s personal social media accounts. It suggests individuals use their best judgement, separate their views from the university with a disclaimer when needed and never use Fordham’s trademarked or copyrighted marks or emblems without the prior approval, with the exception of Linkedin.

Under the policy, the university assumes no responsibility for user comments, screen names, nor any information a third-party posts. The policy also urges the community to

JULIA COMERFORD/THE FORDHAM RAM

Fordham changed its social media policy to support greater online presence.

contact Public Safety if content or comments on Fordham’s social media pages raise concerns about an individual’s safety or the safety of the university community. If the comments violate Fordham’s

social media policy or the university code of conduct, but do not threaten the university community or property, members of the community are instructed to email news@fordham.edu.

NEWS

Page 4

October 9, 2019

Research Spotlight

USG Column

Student Studies 19th Century Mental Illnesses Researches Reproductive and Mental Health

Senators Discuss DAC Initiatives

By HASNA CERAN

By ELIOT SCHIAPARELLI ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

As many humanities researchers do when asked to describe their research, Nora Thomas, FCRH ’21, said hers was complicated. Thomas spent her summer juggling work at WFUV, Fordham’s on-campus NPR affiliate, and researching the modern day links between mental and reproductive health.

“When I initially started this project, I was wondering if syphilis had any effect on the medicalization of mental illness,” said Thomas. “In the 19th century, a lot of western medicine was codified in a different way, and doctors were espousing medical truths and making up biological justifications for societal viewpoints. So there’s a lot of really sketchy stuff going on with race and gender.”

Over the course of the summer, Thomas’s research evolved into a more formal question. “Why did 19th century physicians create a disease analogous to hysteria but without the derogatory connotations (i.e. femaleness)?”

She spent the summer reading and combing through archives which led her to the medical records of Charles Loomis Dana, a neurologist from the 1860s.

According to Thomas, Dana developed a disease called neurasthenia that became prevalent between 1870 and 1910. Neurasthenia was diagnosed almost exclusively in the United States and became known as the American disease.

“It sounds weird to talk about a disease as if it were developed, but all of this is a construction of the English language and what people believe,” said Thomas. “All the illnesses that we experience to a certain extent are a societal construction.”

The symptoms and treatment for neurasthenia were similar to that of hysteria, a psychological disorder of the time that was mostly diagnosed in women and was characterized by over-emo-

On Thursday, Oct. 3, the United Student Government (USG) had a meeting in which junior senators gave presentations detailing initiatives for the semester.

During the Class of 2021 Senate Reports, Sen. Carsyn Fisher, FCRH ’21, spoke about possible resolutions for the Diversity Action Coalition (DAC).

The resolutions would require the university to recognize Indigenous People’s Day rather than Columbus Day and officially acknowledge that it sits on land originally belonging to Native Americans. Fisher also proposed required educational sessions about gender and pronoun usage during faculty training.

Fisher announced that the initiative to provide a map of genderneutral bathrooms on campus is complete, with Campus Facilities finalizing the map and planning to post it on the Fordham website.

Sen. Carlos Rico, FCRH ’21, discussed the importance of creating a centralized hub for students to learn about events hosted by clubs and organizations at Fordham. He stated that there were too many events being planned with the majority of the student body not knowing they existed. He proposed a centralized hub for clubs and organizations on a platform other than OrgSync, which was bought by Campus Labs in 2016 and will eventually be phased out for an alternative platform.

Sen. Nicholas Abbazio, GSB ’21, spoke about the Fordham Food Run, an event in which students use their extra meal swipes and Declining Balance (DCB) to buy food which is then donated to Part Of The Solution (P.O.T.S.), a local food bank. Two hundred and fifty meals were donated during the event last semester, and Abbazio plans to make sure the event does even better this year by increasing publicity.

Emma Budd, FCRH ’20, vice president of Health and Security, spoke about the upcoming Week of Action on Oct. 21 to Oct. 25 and Fresh Check Day, a program hosted in connection with the Jordan Porco Foundation to increase mental health awareness and prevent suicide. The event is currently planned for March 27 on Edward’s Parade, but the time and place are subject to change.

Furthermore, Budd provided updates on initiatives in Campus Psychological Services (CPS), including the online mental health training mentioned in a previous meeting.

The program is still waiting on approval, and it is currently in its testing stages.

In the executive report, Kaylee Wong, GSB ’20, executive president, mentioned that Residential Life, members of PRIDE and Christopher Rodgers, dean of students, would be meeting to discuss guidelines on gender-inclusive residential housing.

Finally, the Dining Committee has a new email for any concerns from the student body at USGdining@fordham.edu, and the Committee on International Integration is looking for new members. Students interested in joining can email usgcii@fordham.edu.

Photo of the Week:

COURTESY OF NORA THOMAS

Thomas researched how 19th century understandings of mental illness affect treatments and diagnoses today.

tion. Neurasthenia was only diagnosed in high class men with jobs that required mental strain.

It stemmed from the belief that seemingly intelligent men such as doctors and professors were exhausting their nerves by thinking too much.

With a second FCRH research grant, Thomas is writing a research paper answering the aforementioned question about the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses.

Thomas said she has learned a lot throughout her research. She started by simply questioning a trend she had seen in her own life.

She asked why, presently, there are so many women prescribed birth control for mental health problems when antidepressants often provide a better solution.

“My objection isn’t that this is all psuedo-science,” said Thomas.

“My objection is that the same thing isn’t the case for men. No

one is like ‘oh, you have depression? Your testicles aren’t working.’ Whereas if women have hormonal disorders, it’s always attributed to their ovaries. It doesn’t mean that isn’t true, I’m just asking why women are still seen as creatures of their reproductive system and men aren’t.”

Thomas learned about and hopes to explore the development of western medicine in America.

She said that the United States is the birthplace of gynecology.

“We have a long history of unnecessary surgeries, particularly on women’s reproductive organs,” said Thomas. “In my research I saw a statistic that said a third of women in their ’60s had hysterectomies.”

She also said she’s discovered many medical advancements that were the results of the exploitation of women’s bodies.

Thomas believes neurasthenia

ALEXANDER WOLZ/THE FORDHAM RAM

The New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins in three straight games to advance to the ALCS this week. The score of the winning game was 5-1 Yankees. Yankee Stadium is just a few subway stops away from Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.

and hysteria were part of an effort to explain mental breakdowns, and our more sophisticated understanding of mental illness today would define them as depression, anxiety or other similar disorders.

“These problems have always existed, it’s just when certain groups have the means to address them that they get talked about, said Thomas. “So these rich Americans had a need, and because they were influential, they were able to seek out treatment.”

One of the differences between neurasthenia and hysteria that Thomas identified were the extent of the treatments. Men had work hours shortened while women were isolated from their families and given almost nothing to do.

“Doctors were using medicine to confine people to their expected roles, and poor people and people of color were expected to work manual labor and things that didn’t involve the brain,” said Thomas. “This medical description was, in part, a way to combat elements of progressivism that were changing roles for people.”

This semester, Thomas is also a part of the Mannion Society, a history society at Fordham that does archival research. Thomas said she appreciates the hard deadlines. They provide her, as well as what she has learned from it.

“I’m learning all the time that there’s all these resources through the library that I didn’t even know about,” said Thomas.

“There’s so much more I could have done this summer, like utilize the Library of Congress. I was just very limited because I didn’t have a complete understanding of how to access these things.”

Thomas said she wants anyone doing research to utilize the Fordham library and ask questions.

NEWS

October 9, 2019

Page 5

McShane Discusses Past and Future of McGinley Extension Intended to Provide Club and Fitness Space FROM MCGINLEY, PAGE 1

McShane, S.J., president of the university, gave insight into the planned layout of the new McGinley Center in an interview with The Fordham Ram. Before any planning could commence, McShane said he built support and funding among university board members and donors for the project. He also sought out students’ needs for the space through Jeffrey Gray, senior vice president for Student Affairs, as well as academic deans and assistant deans.

In apportioning the space, the largest concern, he found, regards fitness space. The new addition will add 17,000 square feet of strength and conditioning area, doubling the size that is currently available to the general student population. It will take over the current location for the Commuter Student Lounge.

The space for commuter students will then be moved from the basement to another part of the building and “enhanced.” The building will also provide more “hang out” space for students, as McShane described it, by including lounges of various sizes.

The second floor will be used for club space. However, not all of the club spaces will be dedicated to specific organizations. He compared the setup to that of the Lincoln Center campus.

JULIA COMERFORD/THE FORDHAM RAM

McGinley's four-story extension will be located next to Hughes Hall, home to the Gabelli School of Business.

“[It will be] more like what is downtown–which has turned out to be quite usable–I think there are only two or three clubs that have actual offices, everyone else shares kind of a bullpen, which is the Michael Bloomberg approach to getting things done with space,” he said.

In addition, McShane said the

SJP Addresses Fordham’s Decision to Appeal Court Case FROM MCGINLEY, PAGE 1

“But now we’re back into the courts. So I can’t comment.”

According to Robert Howe, assistant vice president for communications, the university is unsure of the court’s timeline as of late, but the club will continue to function as usual in the meantime.

Batool Abdelhafez, FCLC ’21, an Arab, Muslim student and president of Students for Justice in Palestine, said they are not surprised by the university's decision to appeal.

“Even though a legal court has recognized that banning SJP was legally fraught, arbitrary and breached even Fordham’s own rules, the Fordham administration will continue to denounce and silence our explicitly anticolonialist, anti-imperialist, antiracist and anti-capitalist advocacy on campus.”

However, they said SJP’s efforts will not be affected by the appeal process and the club will continue to do as much work as possible on-campus.

Since the group achieved club status this summer, Abdelhafez said SJP has attempted to educate the university community on the Palestinian liberation movement and create awareness about colonization and oppression.

This has not come without initial, expected difficulties regarding budget management.

However, the group has hosted several events on campus this semester.

“Although it has been difficult to function without a previously constructed budget, we have hosted a speaker from Jewish Voice for Peace, hosted several club meetings (such as Palestine 101), and we are scheduled to have our first club outing to the Palestine Museum on Oct. 13,” said Abdelhafez.

SJP plans to have two more speaker events for the remainder of the semester. The group has not released information on who these speakers will be.

Abdelhafez said they and the other members of SJP will continue to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and call attention to the political repression in Palestine.

Regardless of the appeal outcome, they said SJP will not go anywhere.

“Our voices will reverberate throughout the campus and our message will remain clear: no one is free until we are all free, and we find our strength in political consciousness, direct action and community organizing,” they said.

extension will be used as a more efficient and expansive space for career planning placement. Career Services currently works out of McGinley Room 224.

On the top floor, the extension will have a large boardroom, and function in a similar way to Bepler Commons. “[The space] is going to be used

by the board four times a year, but the rest of the time…it’s going be a great space for gatherings, events, for lectures, whatever,” McShane said.

Although the construction is present, the McGinley Center is currently in use and serving thousands of students every day. This complicates and slows the process,

but McShane said the building should take shape quickly.

The current McGinley Center was built in 1958, and intended to represent a connection to the Lincoln Center (LC) campus by resembling the Metropolitan Opera House, which sits just outside of the LC campus. The current McGinley shares the white arches and large windows of the Opera House.

However, within the past several years, student groups have advocated and petitioned for a new student center, citing issues regarding the lack of space for the activities it houses. McShane agrees with their sentiment.

“When it was built we had 500 resident students at Rose Hill,” he said. “Right now, combining the on-campus housing with the housing off-campus, we have 4500. So it’s nine-fold increase. So we've gone from being an almost entirely commuter school to being a majority residential school.”

In addition, the size of the undergraduate colleges has more than doubled since the building's construction.

“So the building, it went up in 1958 and was aimed at serving a commuter population from the five boroughs–it is now hopelessly out of date,” he said. “It’s not the right size and it doesn’t have the right mix of facilities. And that’s why we’re pushing this forward.”

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NEWS

Page 6

October 9, 2019

Fordham and NY Giants Enter into Partnership FROM GIANTS, PAGE 1

time and two part-time in the fall, and one part-time in the spring.

According to Jeffrey Gray, senior vice president for Student Affairs, Career Services will vet candidates and send a selection of resumes to the Giants. Gray said this time around the Giant hired an extra intern, meaning four Fordham students are interning with the Giants this semester through the partnership.

Gray said Fordham is also working on an interdisciplinary case study competition that will be rolled out in October or November.

Both Gabelli and Fordham College students from a variety of majors will be able to participate although topics and details have not been finalized yet. The case study will culminate in a presentation to Giants executives in April.

The branding portion of the partnership involves Fordham sponsoring the Giants through advertising.

According to Gray, this could mean digital, print and social media ads marketing the Fordham to the Giants demographic base. Fordham is also planning to host events at MetLife Stadium, home field to the New York Giants and Jets, for both admissions and fundraising. Gray said he could not disclose the exact amount of the deal, as the agreement is a confidential document.

“Any sponsorship agreement involves a sponsorship fee but we’ve also evaluated the assets that we’re getting in return for that and I think our best estimate is that we’re getting out of the agreement more than we’re putting into it financially,” said Gray. “In particular, I’m excited

COURTESY OF RAM ARCHIVES

Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., announced a partnership with the university and the New York Giants.

about the opportunities for our students and I’m excited that they’re excited.”

One of the students who was selected for an internship was Artemis Tsagaris FCLC ’20 who works in digital media and production for the professional sports team. Once a week she takes a roughly 45-minute bus ride out to the Quest Diagnostics Training Center near MetLife Stadium where she helps edit articles, post them to the team’s website, and produce Big Blue Kickoff Live.

Tsagaris said she likes that her job gives her a more hands-on role in production for the team.

“I definitely think having the connection at Fordham helped,” said Tsagaris “I’d like to think that I also got it because I was the most qualified out of the bunch.”

Sean Johnson GSB ’19 also scored a job through the partnership. As a full-time Client Services intern he works with many of the team’s big sponsors. Johnson said the client services department covers a variety of jobs for the team.

“I don’t really do the same thing every day because I get to explore the company a little bit more and take on different responsibilities,” said Johnson.

Johnson has worked for a variety of sports teams including the New York Yankees, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils.

He said he found some of those internship opportunities through Fordham but he found the Giants internship on Handshake, an online job recruiting platform.

“I saw the application open up for these internships between Fordham and the Giants and that’s kind of where it’s led me today,” said Johnson “I would love to stay here past the seasonal timing of this position just because I’ve loved it here so much and it’s a great culture over here. They’re great people to work around and like I said it’s all teamoriented and everyone takes care of each other at the end of the day.”

In their announcement of the partnership, both Fordham and the Giants made sure to point out the long-standing history between the university and the team. As McShane said, John Mara graduated from Fordham Law in 1979 and he also received an honorary degree from Fordham in 2010.

“As a graduate of Fordham Law,

I was fortunate to experience firsthand the wonderful educational opportunities that Fordham has to offer,” said Mara on Giants.com.

“This partnership will create new academic programs, student internships, and community service initiatives that will build upon and strengthen those experiences for Fordham students and our community.”

Mara is not Fordham’s only Giants connection. Tsagaris and Johnson said plenty of Fordham Alumni work for the Giants. Johnson said at least 4 members of his division are Fordham alumni and Tsagaris said her co-workers are always excited to hear about what is going on around campus.

“When they were showing me around the first day they made sure to point out at least three Fordham Alumni,” said Tsagaris. “They were so interested to hear that Fordham has this new partnership with the Giants” Despite applying in July, Tsagaris started her internship in early September – a week after the season started. She said other than her regular one day a week shift she sometimes works additional hours on Mondays and game days for further experience.

For Tsagaris, getting her official Giants ID was a big deal. She said her family goes to games almost every Sunday and have season tickets.

“I’m a huge Giants fan,” said Tsagaris “My family can’t believe it.

It’s always been my dream to work with the Giants and I always said going into college that if I was able to get an internship with the Giants it would be a dream internship.”

Belmont Hosts Second Annual New York Pizza Festival Pizza Enthusiasts and Vendors Gather From Wordwide FROM PIZZA, PAGE 1

as well.

The two men running Harry’s Pizzeria stand from Miami, Florida were having a blast. When asked how they made their way

to the festival, one said it was on a whim.

“My manager told me there was a festival in New York, and we were invited," he said. "I was super pumped and could not wait to

ANDREA GARCIA/THE FORDHAM RAM

Marco's Coal Fire traveled from Denver, Co. to attend this year's festival.

come show off how good this pizza is.”

With fontina and gruyere cheeses, caramelized onion, short rib and arugula, Harry’s had a long line all day. They were constantly handing out hot slices, satisfying many, evident by the “wows” and smiles from those who ate it.

Connor Wright, GSB ’22, said the experience was eyeopening.

“I have been eating traditional New York-style pizza my whole life,” he said. “ I never had a chance to try many kinds or styles of pizza, and I was really surprised at how good and unique each place was in relation to the ingredients and how they made it.”

Katie Von Der Lippe, GSB '21, and Hannah McGee, FCRH '21, also attended the festival.

Like Wright, they said they loved the experience, saying it was “fun,” “memorable,” and also “easy,” especially since they both live very close to the festival, an added bonus for a number of Fordham students who were in attendance.

Von Der Lippe, who is from Colorado, said she especially liked Marco’s Coal Fired Pizza, a restaurant that ironically is very close to her at home.

ANDREA GARCIA/THE FORDHAM RAM

The NY Pizza Festival this weekend hosted vendors from around the world.

From braised beef to fresh cheese and spicy peppers, it was a combination that she never thought existed, and she said she already cannot wait to go to the restaurant itself when she goes

home during her school break.

Von Der Lippe, McGee and Wright all said they were planning to buy tickets again when the festival comes back to the Bronx.

NEWS

October 9, 2019

Page 7

Student Bands Thrive On and Off Rose Hill Campus

By JOE GERNGROSS

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Various student bands are integrated into the nightlife and music scenes at Fordham. They play for student crowds on Friday nights in off-campus basements, at various gigs in the Belmont neighborhood or even at school sponsored events, contributing their own style and influence to the music culture on campus.

Reality TV is one of several rock bands that play basement shows and house parties hosted by Fordham students. In an interview with The Fordham Ram, members of the band shared their thoughts on its image.

“We all have different influences,” said Wes Green, FCLC ’20, lead singer and guitarist of Reality TV. “You can hear a classic rock ... fast punk kinda like the Ramones,” added Niko Kapetan, FCRH ’20, the rhythm guitarist.

“Literally everything,” Henry Smith, FCRH ’20, guitarist, said.

“Other than country.”

When asked about their favorite gig in the band’s history, they all agreed: the first Saturday in October 2019. They said they were just happy the NYPD never got involved.

“We actually got shut down the weekend before,” said Kapetan.

“We were just so tight, and it just worked out. It was a basement show but I feel like we got our sound so it wasn’t too loud.”

According to Reality TV members, their sound is usually muffled by the reverb in such small spaces, like the basements they play. However, the October gig proved to be

COURTESY OF BLONDE OTTER

Blonde Otter, pictured above, is an indie band based in New York City that consists of recent Fordham graduates.

the exception.

“I drank my Red Bull and I said ‘let's get serious.’ We played a killer set. We had an encore,” Smith said.

Reality TV’s encore number that night was “T.V. Eye,” a song made famous by one of their central influences, the Stooges. The band debuted new t-shirts with its logo for $7 at the show, which the members made themselves. The band recently dropped its first demo on Bandcamp.

Another band on campus is Stolen Valor. They describe themselves as “intense hardcore with metal influences, especially sludge metal, early black metal and death metal.”

Thomas Koenig, FCRH ’21, guitar player for Stolen Valor, described

the band as satirical and cynical, an attempt to convey the macabre and “generally unpalatable sense of humor” the band members all possess.

Joe Mastrosimone, FCRH ’19, bass player for Stolen Valor, said his favorite show was playing Battle of the Bands at Rodrigue’s Coffee House last year.

“The real treat, however, was seeing at least 95% of the crowd, comprised of parents and students alike, become extremely uncomfortable and weirded out once we started playing,” Mastrosimone said.

The performance ended up on the Instagram page, Fordham Barstool.

Vocalist Hugh Potter, FCRH ’21, differed with Mastrosimone on his

favorite venue.

“By far our most commercially successful show was Pizzagate, a collaborative effort with some other local bands to take over Pugsley’s, a local pizza place,” he said. “We tore up this tiny AstroTurf stage in the basement next to precarious dusty karaoke machines and got paid in beer and pizza.”

According to Koenig, the group is working on new music.

“We only have a short demo recorded right now but we’re working on recording a bunch of new songs that we’re super excited about,” he said.

Stolen Valor’s recent demo is available for listening on Bandcamp.

Blonde Otter, a band with a more

subdued sound, describes themselves as “not as cool as the Strokes but not as nerdy a Weezer.”

“The music is supposed to be fun. It’s not over-dramatic. It doesn’t take itself too seriously,” says Rob Falcone, FCRH ’17, the bassist and principal songwriter.

“We're the bar band we would wanna see if we went out,” says Mike Guariglia, FCRH ’17, the singer.

Blonde Otter is composed of recent graduates from Fordham, including the brothers Rob and Matt Falcone, FCRH ’18.

“A lot of the indie music nowadays, like that Alex G stuff, or PEARS, it’s great stuff, but you can’t really dance to it,” says Rob Falcone.

Rob Falcone likened audience interaction to a first date.

“You gotta look at it like you’re going on a date with the audience,” he said. “You don’t want to show them your weird side at first. You gotta have at least like an appealing personality to draw them in at first.”

Guariglia chimed in.

“Then you can kinda show them anything and bring them down to all these crazy places because they’re on-board with you now,” he said.

Blonde Otter will be doing a cover set of their essential listening.

This year they said they will be impersonating The Strokes to encourage anyone, Strokes fan or otherwise, to come to Bowery Electric in the Lower East Side on Friday, Oct. 25.

Reality TV will also be having a show on Oct. 25 at an undisclosed address on Belmont Avenue, just blocks away from the university.

Band members can be contacted for more details.

OPINION

Page 8

October 9, 2019

The Fordham Ram

Rent Control is Out of Control

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have supported rent control.

By SEAN FRANKLIN STAFF WRITER

This week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for a nationwide rent control policy that would cap rent increases at 3% annually. The proposal was part of a wider slate of anti-poverty initiatives that OcasioCortez put forth in a recent bill to the House of Representatives. Many of them, such as a provision prohibiting discrimination against tenants based on their income, are excellent ideas. Rent control, however, is not.

The issue of housing affordability weighs heavily on many politicians’

minds. Ocasio-Cortez, in particular, is intimately acquainted with it, as she represents a district in one of the nation’s most unaffordable cities. It’s great that she wants to do something about it — it would be wrong to sit idly by as the promise of a home slips out of the reach of ordinary Americans. This makes it all the more frustrating that the way she has decided to address the issue is so misguided.

Rent control is a policy that sounds great on paper but is horrifically ineffective in real life. It’s a classic case of treating the symptom and not the disease. The reason that

housing prices are so high in many American cities is that the supply of housing is not high enough to meet the demand for it. There simply aren’t enough homes to go around.

Rent control does nothing to address this. Instead, it tries to attack prices directly, ignoring the factors that caused them to be so high in the first place.

Even more insidiously, rent control policies distort economic incentives in such a way that actually causes rents to increase faster than they would otherwise. If the amount of money you can charge for rental housing is set at a certain level, developers will opt not to build new apartments, further exacerbating the problem of an inadequate housing supply. The return on investment thus isn’t high enough to outweigh the costs.

Furthermore, many existing landlords, faced with low returns on apartment housing, will elect to convert their properties into condos instead. In 1994, the city of San Francisco instituted a new rent control policy. Subsequently, the city’s stock of rental housing shrunk by 15% and rents increased by 5% citywide.

Owners were faced with a choice: rent to current tenants at below-

market rates or convert and sell at a higher fair-market price. It’s not surprising that many chose the latter.

Rent control distorts other parts of the market as well. Many landlords choose not to upgrade or repair the rent-controlled apartments they manage because the return on investment is minimal. If you can’t charge a higher price to reflect the improvements you’ve made, there’s no incentive to improve. The city of Cambridge, Mass. removed its rent controls in 1994, the same year that San Francisco instituted its own. A flurry of property improvements followed, boosting property values in Cambridge by $2 billion over the next 10 years.

Rent controls also present distorted incentives to tenants. They increase the incentive to stay put, lowering the rate of turnover considerably. This creates quite a lot of inefficiency. Empty-nesters with no incentive to downsize will stay in three or four-bedroom apartments simply because they are rent-controlled while newcomers and young families with children are forced to squeeze into whatever housing remains.

It’s not even clear that rent control helps the people it’s supposed to.

Ocasio-Cortez included it in a bill

intended to reduce poverty. However, there’s no guarantee that it will do that. Currently, there are 25,000 rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan occupied by households with annual incomes of $200,000 or more. Rent control helps only those who happened to sign a lease in the right place at the right time, while doing nothing for newcomers or young people looking for their first place.

Rent control is simply NIMBYism in another form — a policy that entrenches the advantages of those who are lucky enough to have good housing while locking everyone else out of it. The story of the housing market is more complex than a battle between greedy landlords and overcharged tenants. Landlords can only afford to get greedy when they know what they’re selling is in short supply, and in today’s cities, it is.

The true antidote to the housing crisis is simple: we have to build more housing. Until we do that, no amount of price-fixing will be enough to ensure that there are homes for all who need them.

Sean Franklin, FCRH ’21, is an urban studies and economics major from Alexandria, Virginia.

New York’s War on the Homeless

By COLLIN BONNELL OPINION EDITOR

Amid one of the longest periods of economic expansion in New York City’s history, rates of homelessness in the city have reached crisis levels.

The latest development in this trend came in the form of a report released in August which found that the homeless population in New York’s subways has increased over 20% from last year. In response, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) announced it is expanding its police force by 50% and will begin pushing out homeless New Yorkers who currently live in the subways.

This expansion will consist of hiring 500 new police officers and 81 new supervisors. The hiring spree will cost over $50 million in the next year, and in the next four years the MTA, which is already on a tight budget, will spend over $220 million on these officers alone.

Additionally, the NYPD is assembling a system of 100 security cameras positioned in subway stations across the city in an effort to track homeless subway residents and discourage their continued inhabitation of the subway. The announcement of the surveillance program followed Governor Andrew Cuomo’s criticism that New York was not doing enough to combat homelessness on the subway.

For the same New Yorkers who are reluctant to pay taxes to finance modern lights and basic infrastructure, forcing out the homeless appears to be a worthy cause.

This effort to combat homelessness by persecuting the homeless is not new, and has been practiced for decades by both the MTA and New York City government in the form of “hostile architecture” — the con-

struction of public spaces and amenities to control public behavior and maintain “order” in public spaces.

These efforts are often in the form of limiting seating in public spaces, placing dividers on benches to prevent pedestrians from lying down and adding spikes to objects like fire hydrants.

Hostile architecture recently came into the public view with the MTA’s “Enhanced Solution Initiative” in 2017, which cost $74 million and included the introduction of “leaning bars” throughout the city in place of benches. Supporters of such structures, which also come in more brutal forms including spikes placed around fire hydrants in Manhattan, claim that they prevent public order problems like vandalism. Yet opponents often point out that the real intention of hostile architecture is to keep homeless residents out of sight and out of mind.

By eliminating seating in pubic spaces, hostile architecture forces people to pay to sit down at private establishments like restaurants, in effect creating a paywall for enjoying public spaces. This means that homeless residents can no longer frequent areas like parks, which are now reserved for the privileged.

The increase in hostile architecture throughout New York City comes at a time when the city’s homeless population is soaring, forcing homeless New Yorkers to congregate in the few remaining areas of the city where they can rest — one of the largest of which is the subway.

A seemingly straightforward solution to this problem, of course, would be to build more homeless shelters so New Yorkers are no longer forced to live on the streets. Opposition to the expansion of the city’s homeless

shelters blocks this from happening, however.

In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed the construction of 90 new shelters and the expansion of 30 existing ones to treat the epidemic of homelessness in New York City. The plan, called “Turning the Tide on Homelessness,” was met with widespread backlash, as local officials were given a choice to house homeless New Yorkers in their own neighborhoods or give in to rising anti-homeless sentiment among New York communities. This backlash was ripe for exploitation, and many local politicians, including Sam Esposito, president of the Ozone Park Residents Block Association, have exploited this bigotry for their own ends.

On July 5, 2019, residents of the Queens neighborhood of Ozone Park awoke to find three cars had been vandalized. This vandalism occurred near a shelter, which Esposito’s organization had previously opposed.

Residents of the neighborhood immediately blamed the vandalism on the residents of this shelter, despite the lack of evidence.

The Ozone Park Residents Block Association was frustrated when they were denied access to surveillance footage from the shelter — something they had no probable cause to obtain — so the group installed its own surveillance system.

The system has been installed and consists of eight cameras which are constantly pointed at the homeless shelter, monitoring the daily lives of the New Yorkers who live there. New York City’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) stressed that there is no evidence to back the claims of the block association, and accused Esposito’s group of sowing bigotry against the neighborhood’s homeless population.

Opponents of homeless shelters claim that their opening the structures increases local crime rates. Despite these claims, the 102nd police precinct, which includes Ozone Park, saw a 40% drop in non-felony crimes in the year after a new shelter was constructed there. Cases of public order offenses also dropped by about the same amount.

Esposito dismissed this discrepancy by claiming that people don’t trust the police, and insisted that he had witnessed loitering. It should be noted that all DHS shelters required that their residents leave the shelter during the day until de Blasio’s effort, and during the day many homeless New Yorkers have nowhere to go.

Popular backlash often focuses on shelters dedicated to housing women and children, a group which makes up 70% of homeless New Yorkers, including one which was proposed in Staten Island. Currently, Staten Island has only one shelter which houses 46 families or a total of 149 homeless New Yorkers. According to the DHS, the borough has a homeless population of around 1,200. Meanwhile, skyrocketing rents prevent homeless people from moving off the streets.

One in four of all luxury apartments

built in New York City since 2013 are still unsold. On the Lower East Side, 68% of all new units built since 2013 are still unsold. Meanwhile, many of those luxury apartments which have been sold remain unoccupied and are being treated as investments. In a city unable to house its poorest citizens, real estate has become a form of investment rather than shelter.

Homeless New Yorkers have been evicted from public spaces and denied housing in the form of shelters.

Meanwhile, more low-income New Yorkers are being forced onto the streets by high rents.

The obvious result of this is that the burgeoning homeless population has been forced to find shelter from the elements in New York’s extensive subway system.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers seem intent on forcing their homeless neighbors out of sight rather than addressing the larger issues behind the problem of homelessness in America.

Now that homeless New Yorkers are being pushed from their only remaining spaces, where should we expect them to go?

Collin Bonnell, FCRH ’21, is a history and theology major from Hingham, Mass.

COURTESY OF FLICKR

Rates of homelessness have skyrocketed throughout New York City.

OPINION

October 9, 2019

Page 9

The Outrage Over “Joker” is a Bad Joke

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Despite what some reviewers might have you believe, “Joker” is not a movie that glorifies the toxic incel culture.

By BRIANA SCALIA OPINION EDITOR

Last weekend, I went to see Todd Phillips’s “Joker,” an origin story for Gotham City’s Crown Prince of Crime. I spent the preceding days religiously avoiding any spoilers for the film, leaving only the scenes from the two trailers fresh in my memory.

Normally, I would go to see a film I planned on reviewing by myself, to get the full experience of the film without a friend’s emotions to influence my thoughts. But this weekend, both my father and my brother accompanied me to see “Joker” — not just because they wanted to, but because they were under instruction from my mother to “make sure I was safe.” While I understand her worry, I disagree with the reasoning behind it.

“Joker,” a comic-book movie first and foremost, had gained the attention of a group of people called “incels.” An “incel” (the term is short for “involuntarily celibate”) is a

man that feels they are too awkward or unattractive to get attention from or sexual access to the opposite sex.

Some incels are harmless, taking to Reddit subthreads to discuss how to overcome their social anxiety and approach women they are romantically interested in.

But some incels take their insecurities and frustrations out on the world in the form of violence.

Spoilers for the film from here on, by the way, for those that do not want their experience tarnished.

“What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him…? You get what you deserve,” Arthur Fleck, a.k.a. the Joker, says as he shoots a man point-blank on live television.

For obvious reasons, many fear that this film will awaken violent urges in certain men. It certainly does not help that there is a new group of incels referring to themselves as “clowncels” (a direct reference to the Joker’s clownish visage).

But here is my issue with this logic: at no point does “Joker” glorify

any of Arthur Fleck’s actions.

Yes, the film does humanize the Joker, but it does so perfectly. As you follow protagonist Arthur, you see his daily struggle with his mental illness, a condition in which his body forces him to laugh at any moment, sometimes enough to physically harm his throat (and yes, this is a real condition). You see his strange social mannerisms and how everyone around him is painfully aware of how odd Arthur truly is.

You even see Arthur take one interaction with a woman in an elevator and escalate it into a full romance that only takes place in his mind.

But when Arthur confronts the woman in her apartment, the film does not blame her for being kind to Arthur. It does not try to justify Arthur’s actions, stalking the woman to her job, following her throughout the day. It does not expect you to root for the Joker.

Nor does this film ask you to.

It instead invites you to see where Arthur went wrong, and more importantly, where Gotham — and

society at large — went wrong.

Throughout the film’s narrative, people in Arthur’s life do not recognize his mental illness. On two occasions, his inopportune laughter leads to two separate groups of men physically assaulting him. At work, one of his coworkers hands Arthur a gun, which Arthur specifically tells him he is not allowed to have. His city-assigned psychiatrist tells him halfway through the film that Gotham has cut their funding, that not only will Arthur be without a therapist, but he will have to continue without the seven different medications he is currently on.

“What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society with a society that abandons him?”

People are focusing too much on “mentally ill loner” and not enough on “society.”

There are so many points in the movie where Arthur’s life could have been different. If he hadn’t been given the gun, he wouldn’t have been able to kill those men.

If he hadn’t been denied his medication, he wouldn’t have started spiraling down. If Robert de Niro’s character, a late-night show host Arthur had admired for years, had not publicly mocked Arthur for his stand-up act, his transformation to The Joker might not have reached its conclusive stages. If his own mother hadn’t allowed Arthur to have been physically abused as a child, maybe his mental illness would never have come to pass.

Search online about the legitimacy of mental illness and you will find countless articles begging neurotypical people — those that do not experience atypical mental thoughts or patterns — to regard mental illnesses as seriously as physical illnesses.

In August, President Trump rolled back an Obama-era regulating bill that made it more challeng-

ing for mentally ill people to obtain firearms.

“Joker” offers a dialogue on the importance of mental health, and the dangers of ignoring mental illness.

When Arthur goes to visit the woman, one of the only people that shows him a moment of kindness, it is unclear if he hurts her or not.

The audience does not see him attack her, but sirens can be heard as he leaves her apartment. The film makes it clear that here is where he has crossed the line. He has gone from shooting his attackers in selfdefense to breaking into an innocent woman’s house because she had dared to exchange words with him in an elevator.

If this film is portraying Arthur as a kind of incel, which I do believe it is, it is doing the opposite of encouraging his behavior. It is showing how everyone and everything around him has led him to this point, and that he has crossed the line from misunderstood to malicious.

No man is born with the tendencies of an incel. He is made into one from the encouragement of other violent men, from the lack of care for his emotional state, from the harmful assertions of masculinity that have led him to believe he is entitled to the affections of women, regardless of their own emotions.

“I had a bad day,” Arthur says at one point — an homage to the famous graphic novel “The Killing Joke” where the Joker proclaims, “All it takes is one bad day to drive the sanest man to lunacy.”

But this film proves it isn’t just one bad day that turns the Arthurs of the world into the Jokers. It’s a lifetime of bad days.

Briana Scalia, FCRH ’20, is a journalism major from Long Island, N.Y.

Disagree with our takes?

Write in to us at fordhamramopinions@gmail.com!

OPINION

Page 10

R

Serving the Fordham University campus and 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 and distributed free of charge every Wednesday during the academic year to the Rose Hill, Lincoln Center and Westchester campuses with a readership of over 12,000 and a web readership of over 300,000. The Fordham Ramoffice is located in the basement of the McGinley Center, room B-52.

Website FordhamRam.com Email Address theram@fordham.edu

Editor-in-Chief Aislinn Keely Managing Editor Hannah Gonzalez Business Director Donald Dugan Operations Director Briana Scalia Editorial Director Lindsay Grippo Executive Director Colette Nolan Copy Chiefs Vanessa DeJesus Maggie Rothfus News Editor Helen Stevenson Projects Editor Erica Scalise Assistant News Editors Eliot Schiaparelli Sarah Huffman Opinion Editors Briana Scalia Collin Bonnell Culture Editors Rachel Gow Kieran Press-Reynolds Sports Editor Jimmy Sullivan Assistant Sports Editors Andrew Posadas Dylan Balsamo Digital Producers Kristen Egan Katherine Morris Photo Editor Julia Comerford Assistant Photo Editor Hunter Benegas Visual Director Bojeung Leung Faculty Advisor Jessica Baldwin-Philippi Editorial Page Policy

The Fordham Ram’s editorial is se-

lected on a weekly basis and reflects the editorial board’s view on a campus issue.

Opinions Policy The Fordham Ramaccepts submissions to fordhamramopinions@gmail. com. Commentaries are printed on a space available basis. The Fordham Ram reserves the right to reject any submission for any reason, without notice. Submissions become the exclusive property of The Fordham Ram .

The Fordham Ram reserves the right to edit any submissions. The opinions in The Fordham Ram’s editorials are those of the editorial board; those expressed in articles, letters, commentaries, cartoons or graphics are those of the individual author. No part of The Fordham Ram may be reproduced without written consent.

October 9, 2019

From the Desk | Julia Comerford

An Ode to My Team

I would like to dedicate my final From the Desk to my team. My Fordham Ram team. As a Division I Athlete, I have been a part of many sports teams throughout my life: two lacrosse, a few soccer, three swimming, one basketball and two rowing, including my rowing team at Fordham. Out of the nine different sports teams I have been a part of, none of them were anything like my team here at The Fordham Ram. On Sept. 4, 2016, I desperately emailed the photography editor at the time and, ironically, one of my Fordham Rowing teammates, Andrea Garcia, to ask if I could still sign up to be a staff photographer on the Ram because I “did not have time to walk around the club fair the day before” as I stated in the email with many exclamation points.

As a budding college freshman with clearly horrific time management skills on the first week of classes, I was still eager to get heavily involved at Fordham in any way I could and try new things. Of course, Andrea welcomed me onto The Fordham Ram photography team with open arms. I had no idea where this photography thing would go, but I wanted to give it a try.

I submitted some photographs and they made it in the newspaper that week. I was walking back to my freshman dorm when I saw Andrea zooming by on a golf cart full of newspapers delivering them to the dorms.

She saw me and yelled, “Julia, did you see your photos in the paper?

You made it in the paper, look!”

With a beaming smile, she handed me a copy. There it was: my photo published in the newspaper with my name written under it. Andrea was so excited for me and so was I, and that’s when I knew I was in for good. I wanted to be a part of The Fordham Ram team.

I started out as a staff photographer and then eventually became assistant photo editor and then photo editor for my first full volume, Volume 99. Flash forward three years later, and here I am. I have been the Ram’s photography editor for the last three years, three volumes, and let me tell you, it has been a ride.

But the reason I began this ride in the first place was because of the excitement I felt when Andrea handed me that first copy of the Ram and the curiosity and wonder I felt when I stepped into the print shop in the basement of McGinley for the first time during production.

As I returned to the print shop every Tuesday night to organize and edit photos, it felt different than the sports teams I had been on before.

Because it felt different to me, it was a little uncomfortable at first. But I learned from being an athlete that you have to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

So I did just that, returning every Sunday and Tuesday night to my team in the basement I felt like I was a part of something bigger than myself.

A team is a group of people that work together to achieve a common goal. With both the Ram and my other sports teams, determina-

tion, hard work and dedication are required to achieve said goal. But these factors, I learned, are applied differently on my newspaper team.

Determination means staying in the windowless basement for as many hours needed without complaint until your contribution to the newspaper that week is completed to the best of your ability. Hard work means not stopping until every single article is written, copy edited and has a photo paired with it.

Dedication means coming back to the basement the following Sunday and Tuesday to do it all over again, because you simply love doing it.

What kept me coming back every single Tuesday over the last three years to make this paper were the people with whom I made it. From coming down to the print shop to listen to the copy team passionately explain how the word “the” before The Fordham Ram is capitalized with the full title and lowercase with the shortened title “the Ram,” to everyone going over a breaking news Tweet together before it is posted, to listening to sports comically discuss why it is that New York sports teams suck and to listening to every extremely interesting opinion and culture article pitch. This runon sentence could really just run forever talking about what it’s like to be stuck in a basement making a paper with some of the most incredible teammates I have ever had.

During my time on the Ram, this team has accomplished so much, including revamping the Ram’s website, starting the Ramcast and creating an entire visual team around

the photo team with graphic design, videography, layout and photography opportunities for all incoming staff members and to expand our multimedia. To staff of Volumes 99, 100 and 101, you are the most creative, intelligent, upbeat, savvy, witty, tirelessly hard working, sarcastically funny and dedicated people I have ever known.

Thank you to every single one of you for being so patient, kind and encouraging of me for the last three years. Every time I had a bad day or was going through something I knew that when I would go down to the basement on Tuesday with all of you, everything wouldn’t seem so bad anymore. My Ram team makes me laugh harder than I ever have and smile so much that my cheeks are sore. Thank you all for letting me be your photo editor these last three years.

This is the end of my sappy but genuine ode to my amazing team and I have only one thing left to say: read the Ram. It’s made by people who are truly better than most.

Editorial | Creative Expression

A Call to Create There is ample opportunity on a university campus to express oneself. Clubs, classes and other extracurriculars cater to a variety of interests and offer additional richness to one’s education. Spaces in which to create exist in a multitude in forms, ranging from the didactic and serious to the ironic and humorous.

The internet has increased accessibility for creatives like never before, as well. Friends become TikTok famous. Tweets go viral.

The guy who lives across the hall turns out to be a mildly successful SoundCloud rapper with a few thousand listens. Such democratization and diversification of creative processes should inspire us all to tap into the ones that strike our interest, even if we don’t make it big overnight.

The Fordham community has its fair share of talented individuals, along with several outlets through which these students can pursue, hone and share their respective passions. Students are continually finding other ways to connect, express themselves, solve problems in their communities and have fun. One way these efforts come to life at Rose Hill is through a surprisingly robust student music scene.

The Ram’s newest project,

Ramped Up, aims to highlight some of the student talent at the university through an acoustic concert series in the vein of National Public Radio’s Tiny Desk Concert Series. Our first concert featured Westfalia, a four-person group made up of Rose Hill juniors Joe Guzzardo, FCRH ’21, Jordan Llatance, FCRH ’21, Jack Lyons, FCRH ’21, and Collin Melazzo, FCRH ’21, and can be found on Youtube.

The series will be a monthly installment, with the dual-goal of exposing Fordham to the abundance of talent on its campuses and giving student creatives a place to showcase their work.

House parties, club fundraisers and other venues in the New York metro area provide young musicians the opportunity to do similar things, such as Pizzagate at Pugsley Pizza last semester, which included performances from Reality TV, Westfalia and others.

Other methods of creative expression have meaningful spaces at Rose Hill, too. Fordham Experimental Theatre (FET) continually cultivates a thriving community of creatives housed in the Black Box Theatre in Collins Hall.

Various campus publications provide students with spaces to establish and share their voices

with the Fordham community.

The Ampersand, for example, publishes a literary magazine containing student poetry, prose and artwork each semester. Fordham’s journal of news, analysis, comment and review, the paper, aims to emphasize “the obvious and active role of the student writer in his or her work,” according to the publication’s Facebook page.

The Fordham community greatly benefits from the individuality of all of its members.

Diversity of perspective, opinion and voice can add depth to the collective atmosphere and inspire conversations that push productive social change.

Sharing your interiority with the outside world can be a nervewracking experience, but one that almost always proves worthwhile for everyone involved. Learn to lean into the discomfort that accompanies such vulnerability.

Your potential to impact those around you positively is too great to be compromised by fear.

Similarly, a university environment presents a unique opportunity for individuals to test out the waters in a multitude of areas. But as we get older, we do not lose the freedom to experiment with our creative processes. Ideally, we will all go on to lead exciting lives full

of discoveries that continue to reshape our sense of self-expression and inform the ways we channel our artistic energies.

However, opportunities for such exploration are not always so readily available. Full-time jobs, mature relationships and other ‘adult’ responsibilities can prove stressors that necessitate a healthy work-life balance. It is crucial that you learn to build a working foundation for the needed recreation that will unfailingly make your life more enjoyable while you have abundant resources to do so.

Use the variety of platforms Fordham has to offer not only to cultivate but also amplify your creative expression. Your voice is meaningful to our community, and the expression of your voice is meaningful to your own personal fulfillment. Try new things, be creatively vulnerable and make a point to enjoy doing it.

People’s college years often prove to be formative, fun and just plain weird. Create something beautiful or create something hysterically horrible. Create simply because it feels good, because you can and because you have a community here willing to help make you and your creations the best they can be, if you wish to tap into it.

CULTURE

October 9, 2019

Page 11

Ramsey Orta: Imprisoned and Imperiled Fiancée Alleges NYPD Systemic Abuse

By JOERGEN OSTENSEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

When Deja Richardson met Ramsey Orta in 2014, she did not know who he was. She did not know he filmed the video of then-NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo choking his friend Eric Garner to death.

Soon after they met, Richardson and Orta fell in love. When Orta first told Richardson about the video, she was horrified.

“I was just in awe of the situation,” Richardson told the Ram. “It was so wrong that he was literally front and center, watching his friend being killed, watching his friend saying numerous times ‘I can’t breathe.’”

The video of Garner’s death galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement, and Orta became a hero to activists.

“Everyone who knows the name Eric Garner should know the name Ramsey Orta,” Hawk Newsome, a Black Lives Matter for Greater New York activist, told the Ram. Newsome said the Grand Jury decision not to indict Pantaleo outraged him and became a watershed moment for his activism.

Similarly, Joshua Lopez told The Ram that Orta’s video helped him connect his uncle’s shooting by a police officer to other police brutality incidents.

While Orta’s famous video shed light on a horrific injustice, what happened to Orta because of it adds another dimension to the story.

Orta is currently incarcerated and will be until July 2020 due to being denied parole in August. By the time of his release, he will have spent 46 months behind bars. From the perspective of his supporters, he is a political prisoner of the NYPD. Richardson said at the beginning of their relationship the NYPD was definitely targeting Orta — riding by his house and shining lights in windows. According to her, he did not want to go outside in fear of undercover cops. “‘You recorded us,’” she said they told him. “‘Now we’re gonna record you.’”

After a few arrests during this period, Orta was ultimately slapped with two criminal charges, one relating to marijuana and another for a gun, according to Richardson.

Orta originally pleaded not guilty, according to The Verge. But then the prosecutors said they were going to add charges against Orta’s mother, Emily Mercado, according to Richardson.

Richardson said they offered Orta a deal, including dropping the charges against his mother, who is responsible for caring for Orta’s younger brother. “Ramsey actually took the plea deal for his mom,” she said.

As a result, there was never a trial, which, according to the New York

Times, happens in 98% of felony arrests that end in convictions.

Lopez said he believes the police fabricated the case against Orta.

Back in 2011, Lopez’s uncle, John Collado, was in Inwood, where he lived, when he saw a fight breaking out between two individuals. Lopez said Collado tried to stop the fight, but it turned out that one of the people involved was an undercover cop. The officer shot and killed Collado without identifying himself.

The New York Daily News reported the criminal case against the officer, James Connolly, was pronounced a mistrial. The

family was awarded $14.1 million in a separate civil case.

Lopez got involved in activism after reading about cases like his uncle’s.

He said his experience with his uncle helped him understand how the police behaved toward Orta, who would become his friend.

“When I first heard my uncle was murdered, they said my uncle was a professional wrestler who was choking out this cop, so I already knew that it wasn’t adding up,” he said. “You can’t always believe what they say, especially about somebody who’s exposing them.”

Richardson said Orta considers himself a political prisoner and believes the video caused his incarceration. “They know who he was, they knew what he did,” she said.

According to the Alliance for Global Justice, the United States has many political prisoners. Some, like Leonard Peletier and Mumia Abu Jamal, have spent decades in prison, while others like Red Fawn Fallis have only spent a couple of years.

Newsome said the NYPD is the problem. “It reaffirms that the NYPD behave like a Gestapo,” he said. “It reaffirms that we are MIDDLE PHOTOS COURTESY OF DEJA RICHARDSON SIDE PHOTOS COURTESY OF FACEBOOK living in a police state... even though we live in a so -called Supporters consider Orta a political prisoner of the NYPD.

progressive city led by progressive leaders, there’s no justice for black and brown people, it’s all a facade.”

According to Richardson, Correctional Officers (COs) have targeted Orta in prison.

This began on Rikers Island, where his cell block was served meatloaf containing rat poison, according to The Verge. Since then, Richardson said Orta has avoided food offered by COs, relying primarily on monthly packages she sends.

At least three times, for periods of between 30 and 60 days, Orta was held in solitary confinement as punishment for his behavior, according to Richardson and The Verge. While in solitary, Orta was forced to eat prison food, and there was no way to contact him except through letters or a physical visit.

“It definitely is a form of torture,” Richardson said.

Lopez visited Orta during his time in isolation. “You’re on the phone behind the glass,” he said. “I felt so like down seeing him like that. I wished I could have just gave

him a hug and everything.”

Richardson said these periods were very scary for her. “It has traumatized him,” Richardson said. “My worst fear is getting a phone call that he killed himself, or they’ve done something to him.”

She said she worries about the long term effects of solitary, especially given the suicide of Kalief Browder.

According to Lopez, it is difficult to maintain his activist involvement, especially with type one diabetes which puts him at particular risk at protests where he might be arrested. But Orta, who

Lopez called a quiet man with the heart of a lion, has become a major source of inspiration.

Orta had a parole hearing in August that could have led to a December 2019 release. Richardson said 100 people sent support letters to the prison and almost 2000 people signed a physical petition asking for his release, which gave her hope.

However, parole was denied.

According to Richardson, what killed Orta’s chance was the large number of citations he accumulated at the different prisons, which she alleged is the result of targeting. She said the motivated targeting became especially clear after the parole decision.

“Ever since the parole board hearing was done, Ramsey hasn’t got a ticket, hasn’t gotten in trouble, nobody’s harassing or bothering him,” she said.

Richardson said she has not been able to visit her fiancée since August because it is very difficult for her to reach Collins Correctional Facility, up near Buffalo. This meant she missed his birthday on Sept. 18.

She said she was in love with Orta after the first three months of their relationship, but she did not think he was serious about it. When he asked her to marry him, she turned him down.

Orta proposed again in a letter he mailed from prison. Richardson said she has trouble remembering dates, but marked the time by saying it took place while Orta was in two facilities before his current one.

The next time she visited him, he presented her with a ring he had managed to make in prison. “He can’t give me an actual ring right now,” she said.

“So I have that. I have the ring that he made for me out of the copper or whatever it is.”

Orta’s incarceration has created a major strain on Richardson. “The situation we’re in right now and everything, it weighs on my heart, it weighs heavy, because I just want him to be back, I just want him to be with me, I just want to lay with him, I just want to talk to him, hug him,” she said. “I’m patiently waiting for July 2020 to come.”

Richardson said she wants to have a small, intimate wedding with only the couple’s closest friends and relatives after Orta’s release. She hopes to move to the suburbs or the country.

According to her, for Orta’s physical, emotional and psychological safety, they will never be able to live in New York City again because of the NYPD. She said she hopes to start a new life with the help of GoFundMe donations.

“We just feel that he wouldn't survive, and he wouldn't be living his life peacefully,” she said. “You know at this point, that’s all we both want, just peace and quiet.”

FORDHAM LOOKS FORWARD

Page 12

October 9, 2019

CSA Works Toward a Commuter-Friendly Future

By KRISTEN McNERNEY STAFF WRITER

This week, the Ram sat down with Salma Youssef, FCRH ’20, executive vice president of Commuting Students Association (CSA). Youssef spoke on her goals for promoting policies supportive of commuters, as well as the events CSA will put on over the course of the calendar year.

Kristen McNerney: What is CSA looking forward to this semester?

Salma Youssef: We are looking forward to a great year of commuter inclusion through programming and policy. We are actively programming diverse events at commuter-friendly times throughout the year. We are also starting off strong with policies to improve campus life for commuters and help them feel welcome at Fordham. We have already started working with United Student Government (USG) on initiatives for this year through Commuter Life Committee.

KM: What kinds of things does the Commuter Life Committee do?

SY: Commuter Life Committee is the policy branch that deals with everything related to commuter life. This year we are working on increasing earlier D-train shuttle times, providing more convenient meal plans for commuters, allowing printing access in FMH and changing class registration start time so as to not conflict with early commutes. We are also working with USG on a proposal to provide feminine sanitary products in all women’s bathrooms and all gender-neutral bathrooms on all three of Fordham’s campuses.

KM: Are there any particular events you would like to highlight?

SY: We are excited to present Thanks-Give-Away, our annual fundraiser that benefits Part of the Solution (POTS) which will be held on Nov. 21 in McGinley Second. It is a fun and engaging way for all students at Fordham to give back to the community.

Students can look forward to dinner, performances, activities and large raffle items! Later on in the spring, students can look forward to Commuter Week. During this week we celebrate commuters through large-scale activities and events to help them relieve stress.

KM: What is “Part of the Solution” and what is your partnership like?

SY: POTS is a local food pantry that provides assistance to the homeless. We have partnered with them for several years now.

Our fundraising goal for ThanksGive-Away is $6000 which we collect through entry tickets, raffle tickets and donations. We also accept canned food as donations.

All students, faculty and administrators are welcome to come and contribute to this fantastic night as we celebrate the holiday season and bring the Fordham community together.

KM: What changes are being brought about to CSA? SY: The change we are bringing about this year is increased

visibility and collaboration with the Commuter Assistants and the Big 4 (CSA, Campus Activities Board, Residence Hall Association and USG). We are also working on engaging the off-campus community through increased outreach. Through the Commuter Life Committee, we are strengthening commuter voices and pushing forward policy. Our work last year led to the recent improvements of the McGinley Student Lounge. We are constantly receiving feedback from commuters as we move forward.

KM: What kind of numbers are you seeing in terms of active participation from commuters?

SY: For participation, our smaller events are usually attended by approximately 100 students. For Thanks-Give-Away, we expect attendance ranging from 300–500 students, faculty and administration.

KM: Are there any new ways to help better represent the commuter population at Fordham?

SY: Our main form of engagement is through surveys and outreach in the McGinley Student Lounge. The best way to engage new commuters is to ensure that they are well represented in student government and maintaining a direct line of contact through our emails and social media. We also encourage commuters to sit in on our general assembly meeting every Monday.

This interview was edited for space and clarity by Hannah Gonzalez. Spread designed by Jennifer Anh Hoang.

COURTESY OF CSA

The Commuting Students Association greets students at the fall club fair (top). The CSA executive board, pictured, works to represent commuter interests (bottom).

October 9, 2019

FORDHAM LOOKS FORWARD

Page 13

COURTESY OF CSA

CSA hosts a diverse variety of events and activities during its annual Commuter Week in the spring, which invites the entire student body to participate and build community across the university.

COURTESY OF THE RAM ARCHIVES

Students attend an event during Commuter Week (bottom left). The Student Lounge in McGinley Center, a popular spot for commuter students, recently received a refurbishing (bottom right).

CULTURE

Page 14

October 9, 2019

“In the Next Few Years, I See Myself at the Top” 14 Year-Old Melodic Rapper KILJ Dreams of Glory

By ALEXANDRA LANGE COLUMNIST

At just 14 years old, Atlanta-based rapper KILJ has a bright future ahead of him.

Growing up in the age of technology, he has used his youth as an advantage in building his platform.

Working his way up from recording music using GarageBand and free beats he found online, the high school freshman found inspiration in classic artists like Michael Jackson and Ne-Yo and today’s hottest rappers like Lil Uzi Vert and Juice WRLD to create his own sound.

KILJ took advantage of the network of artists and producers on Instagram to connect with his current executive producers Hagan and BLK Beats.

Rapping on beats that perfectly compliment the young rapper’s melodic flow, KILJ began releasing music on SoundCloud earlier this year and has quickly gained a loyal following of over 5,000 Instagram followers (@xokillj) and nearly 400 SoundCloud followers (KILJ).

Social media has played an integral role in KILJ’s development as an artist as he has met some of his closest friends in the music industry on Instagram and has collaborated with other rising artists around the world.

Gaining mainstream attention after being featured on the massively popular YouTube channel "Promoting Sounds," his song “95” has racked up over 120,000 plays on YouTube and over 40,000 SoundCloud streams.

KILJ’s melodic emo-rap vibe puts him in a perfect position to succeed in the evolving rap industry. With the powerful trap flow of artists like Juice WRLD and Lil Mosey combined

with a hint of pop bounce, KILJ crafts his own unique sound.

The Fordham Ram spoke with KILJ about his journey to becoming a rapper and his life outside of music.

Q: What’s your creative process like? How do you record/write?

A: Whenever I find a beat I like I just immediately start recording because I have a home studio. I don't really write any lyrics down until after the song's made, though. I go off the top and just run with it nowadays.

Q: What’s it like collaborating with other artists? Who has been your favorite collab so far?

A: It's great collaborating with other artists. How it goes is I usually send an open (a song with an empty space for another verse or hook) to someone I think would sound good on it. They send it back, I send it to my producers Hagan or BLK, and the rest is history.

Q: Who’s your dream collab?

A: I can't decide on just one. I'd love to get something done with Kody Lavigne, Juice WRLD, Killval and there's probably so many others.

Q: Who is your dream producer to work with? Why? A: I really like the producers I work with now. Maybe Nick Mira or Taz Taylor. Just because their beats sound so different but hard at the same time, if you know what I mean.

Q: If you could open a show for any artist who would it be?

A:

Definitely

Juice

WRLD.

Q: Where do you see your career going in the next few years?

A: In the next few years, I see myself at the top. A few gold and platinum records, an award for my music and touring. I know there's a lot more to come with this journey.

Q: If you could have a video made of any of your songs, which would it be? Do you have any directors you would dream of working with?

A: Definitely "95." I think it’s the best song I’ve made just because of the way my voice flows so smoothly on the beat. I know I'll work with Cole Bennett (of Lyrical Lemonade) someday in the future.

still in school? How do you balance school and music?

A: I'm 14 right now. I do online school, so I do my schoolwork and everything at home which is ideal for me since I travel back and forth to L.A. a lot. But whenever I record, I usually do it from like 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then I'll do everything a regular kid would do after that.

Q: What do you do when you’re not making music?

A: Play basketball, not on a team or anything, just to have fun, hang out with friends, travel, do schoolwork, watch YouTube videos and eat Chick-Fil-A's Polynesian sauce.

Q: If you could travel anywhere

in the world where would it be?

A: Japan, because I heard they have talking toilets over there.

Q: How’d you get the name KILJ? A: I was just riding in the car one day, and the name came to me. I never forgot about it, so I just ran with it.

Q: Who’s another under the radar artist we should be listening to in your opinion?

A: I think there's plenty, but I'll just give you sadtaylor (His Instagram and Soundcloud are @sadtaylor333) and Tommy Ice (His Instagram is @tommyice1100 and SoundCloud is tommy ice). Both are really good friends of mine.

Q: Who was your first concert?

A: My first concert was in San Diego and it was KYLE, NF and Logic.

We were sitting way back in the lawn far away from the stage, but it was definitely a dope experience.

Q: What is your favorite song of all time? Do you have a favorite artist?

A: "Erase Your Social" by Lil Uzi Vert is my favorite song of all time. It has these nostalgic vibes I just can't really put my finger on. I don't necessarily have a favorite artist though. I listen to way too many people to just have one favorite. Some of my favorites are mainstream artists like Juice WRLD, Drake, Lil Mosey and Post Malone and also underground artists like Killval, LXST, ryster and Yung Divide.

Q: Since you’re only 14, are you

COURTESY OF KILJ FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

KILJ is an up-and-coming melodic rapper on SoundCloud.

Editor's Pick | Music

Nick Cave Dissolves Into Falsetto on “Ghosteen”

By MAGGIE ROTHFUS COPY CHIEF

On Friday, Oct. 4, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds released “Ghosteen,” a two-part album that was announced only two weeks ago. Don’t let the name fool you — “Ghosteen” is not a Halloween-themed album.

The Guardian granted it the phrase “heavenly haunting.” The Thomas Kinkade–esque painting (actually produced by gospel artist Tom duBois) used as the cover image and the album’s title were clues to what this release’s topics would cover: the separation the afterlife induces and the search for peace.

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds released his new two-part album, "Ghosteen."

These two themes are central to the deeply personal record. This is the first full-length release since the death of Cave’s 15-year-old son (2016’s “Skeleton Tree” was already in production at the time of his passing), and it shows.

Cave begins the album with assurance in “Spinning Song,” singing in an uncommon falsetto reminiscent of a choir: “Peace will come, a peace will come, a peace will come in time/A time will come, a time will come, a time will come for us.”

And so Cave’s album-long search for meaning and wholeness begins.

The falsettos — simultaneously heavenly and ghostly — continue on the tracks “Bright Horses,” “Waiting for You,” “Sun Forest,” “Leviathan” and “Hollywood.”

Other heavenly and ghostly elements come together to form heartbreak in the titular song, where Cave describes the life of a family once their son is gone.

Verses after singing, “Ghosteen dances in my hand,” Cave continues with, “There’s nothing wrong with loving something you can’t hold in your hand/You’re sitting on the edge of your bed, smoking and shak-

ing your head.”

In the announcement of “Ghosteen,” Cave stated that the first eight songs of the album were its “children,” and the final three, including the spoken poem, its “parents.”

While it could be easy to interpret this as Cave and his wife’s perspectives versus their two sons, fans and critics speculate that this could simply reference the song-writing process. The final songs preceded the bulk of the record. The interconnectedness and theme-repetition throughout the album’s lyrics point to the latter being the case.

The lyrics in “Night Raid” are derived from those of the spoken poem “Fireflies” on part two, and, if interpreted to be as personal as Cave has sought to be in recent years, appears to be a memory of the conception of his twin sons: “They were just a sigh released from a dying star/ They were runaway flakes of snow, yeah, I know/ They annexed your insides in a late night raid.”

The album ends with the 14-minute long “Hollywood,”

which sonically brings back darker elements reminiscent of “Push the Sky Away” and maintains the album’s running use of falsettos.

The chorus, the apparent origin of the “Spinning Song” outro, repeats, “And I’m just waiting now for my time to come/ … And I’m just waiting now for peace to come.”

The track’s final verse details the story of a mother mourning the loss of her baby, to which Cave reacts with, “Everybody’s losing someone/ It’s a long way to find peace of mind, peace of mind.”

“Ghosteen” opened with a hopeful determination to find contentment; “Hollywood” shows audiences a man tired from the journey. He is also a man who has accepted the hand fate dealt him.

Concluding a trilogy that began with 2013’s “Push the Sky Away,” one can only wonder what will come next — a further brokendown, synthesizer-filled record from the Bad Seeds, another guitar-led Grinderman release or, perhaps, something entirely different from what Cave has done previously.

CULTURE

October 9, 2019

Page 15

Ramped Up With Westfalia

By KIERAN PRESS-REYNOLDS CULTURE EDITOR

The Fordham Ram is happy to announce the debut of a monthly concert series featuring student musicians at Fordham University.

One day in junior year of high school, Joe Guzzardo, FCRH ’21, asked his friend Jordan Llatance, FCRH ’21, if he wanted to start a band.

“He was like, 'No,'” Guzzardo said.

Guzzardo persisted, though, and Llatance eventually gave in. The pair from New Egypt, NJ found two other musicians at their school, Jack Lyons, FCRH ’21, and Collin Melazzo, FCRH ’21, and formed Westfalia — pronounced West-fall-ee-uh — now one of Fordham’s premiere student outfits.

On the evening of an early October day filled with the incessant shifting of temperatures — first blistering heat, then sudden downpour — a warm ember pulsed through Tognino Hall.

Usually home to orientation groups and guest speakers, on this day, the cavernous, Cathedral-like space echoed with laid-back acoustic guitar music.

Guzzardo, who plays guitar, sings and helps write for the band, performed four songs, including “Poland,” “Played Two,” “In The Middle” and a cover of “I Was 17” by Starflyer 59.

Westfalia is known for playing at Fordham-related shindigs, like the recent Engineers Without Borders event.

When asked about the band’s future, Melazzo said that while they don’t have ambitions of performing at Coachella, they want to keep playing together after college.

“We’re working on an album, hopefully that’ll come out soon,” Guzzardo said.

Follow Westfalia on Instagram at westfaliatheband and Twitter at westfaliaband.

View the full performance on our YouTube channel, The Ram. Listen to the full interview on our podcast on SoundCloud at Ramcast.

COURTESY OF JEFFREY FIGUEREO FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

Joe Guzzardo, FCRH ’21, guitarist, vocalist and co-songwriter for Westfalia, performed in Tognino Hall.

Henry Chalfant Captures Bronx Art Buried in Time

By SARA TSUGRANIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In the ’70s and ’80s, the Bronx suffered. The borough was burning, heroin and crack epidemics plagued the city and crime on the subway reached an all-time high. Eventually,

all of this washed away, and the city has spent the last 20 years rebuilding uninterrupted. This rebuilding, though, would also wash away the artistry and creativity that was born out of this tumultuous period.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts’ newest exhibit, “Henry Chalfant: Art

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SARA TSUGRANIS FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

Visit the Bronx Museum of the Arts to see Henry Chalfant's exhibit.

vs. Transit, 1977-1987,” displays the ignored history of this time. The exhibit is Chalfant’s first United States retrospective, fittingly in the borough where what he photographed was born.

Chalfant’s photography captures graffiti spanning entire subway cars and youth culture in the Bronx, which includes the birth of hip-hop, BMX riders, fashion, breakdancing and graffiti artists. The youth culture in the Bronx would come to dominate the mainstream of today, yet the history of this art is largely unknown.

Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor of history and African American studies at Fordham University, who explained what was going on in the Bronx and New York City as a whole at the time Henry Chalfant was taking photographs.

Naison witnessed the period when the Bronx was burning. “I remember how helpless I felt watching it, and also never having seen anything like it,” he said.

People were afraid of the subways in New York City, and according to Dr. Naison, while he was never hurt on the subway, he partially attributes this to looking intimidating and perfecting a “junkie scratch.”

During this time, graffiti on subways became popular along with hiphop. The graffiti was seen as a sign of urban decay and the surge of hip-hop is often attributed to the 1977 New York City blackout due to looting that allowed for equipment to be stolen by artists who could not afford it.

Eric Firestone, the producer of the exhibit, said that the graffiti scene in New York City at this time was “the most important art movement that came out of America, period.”

Chalfant photographed the work of graffiti art legends such as Dondi, Futura, Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Zephyr and more. Specifically, Bronx legends Blade, Crash, DAZE, Dez, Kel, Mare, SEEN, Skeme and T-Kid. These artists’ work would spread globally and influence the graffiti

scene in places like Paris and Berlin. “The kids had something to say and they said it artistically,” said Firestone, and concerning Chalfant, “without his documentation, it would just be folklore.”

I was lucky enough to speak with Mr. Chalfant about his work and the subjects he captured. He arrived as a sculptor, where he dealt with minimal, industrial work. “I was more interested in more expressive kind of work, which of course I was seeing on the sides of the trains as I was going to work myself,” he said. “The art was just beginning to develop a kind of 3-D presence on the side of the train, so that was an added stylistic attraction for me.”

Chalfant describes the desire to photograph the trains as a desire to show friends what the city was like. "This is one of the things that was happening, and I thought it was very, very cool, and I wanted to show it,” he said. "It snowballed from there. Once I started, I had to get more. You feel like you are hunting or fishing, it’s the same kind of mentality. I want more.

The big one got away. I have to go back and try to get it.”

The graffiti artists that created the work that Chalfant documented had developed a relationship with him.

He was documenting their work, and the artists would direct him to what station, train and side of the train their work was on.

“They helped me out, and I gave them pictures of my stuff, and so that helped them out too,” Chalfant said. “I made friends amongst them, several of them, which I have held to this day.”

These young kids created a movement of hip-hop and graffiti hand in hand that would take over the world. This art was born out of destruction. A hard time for New Yorkers was a period of artistic prosperity for the youth

of the city, and Chalfant wanted his art to bridge that gap. “I wanted people to see how beautiful these things were, these paintings on the trains, because I think it’s all a blur for most New Yorkers, it was just another assault on them, on their private space,” Chalfant said.

Graffiti is still not largely accepted in the world of fine art, much to Chalfant's dismay. "Ultimately, we have to erase the distinction between fine art, or high art and low art," he said. "I don’t think it serves us well anymore, if it ever did. This is art.”

The knowledge and skill these kids had is reflected in the graffiti.

One subway imitates Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans," and Chalfant says this reflects a certain level of sophistication. “I think people think, ‘Oh, they’re ignorant kids,’ but that’s not so," he said. "A lot of them were quite sophisticated and had been taken to museums by their parents or by their school classes, so they had some inkling of what was going on in the art world.”

Today, he tells young aspiring artists to go out and create.

Henry Chalfant’s photographs capture an ignored history of New York City that has defined modern culture today. It is important that we remember the artistry embedded into the city during the ’70s and ’80s.

“Getting your name up may have been the original urge, but saying something more than ‘I am here,’ expressing deep yearnings and passions, creating beauty, revealing the drama of life, having political voice, all that is now possible and taking place all around us,” Chalfant said. He gave a voice to artists who otherwise would have been overlooked and subsequently changed the course of art.

Be sure to visit the Bronx Museum of the Arts to see “Henry Chalfant: Art vs. Transit, 1977-1987,” running until March 8, 2020.

CULTURE

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October 9, 2019

Sexual Assault Cases Can Revictimize the Victim

Editor's note: article contains mention of sexual assault.

In June of 2016, Chanel Miller delivered a victim impact statement that everyone listening in the California courtroom would remember. Then anonymously referred to as “Emily Doe,” she addressed her attacker directly, beginning with “You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me.

And that’s why we’re here today.”

The trial was one of the most controversial in recent history. Miller was raped by Stanford University student Brock Turner at a fraternity party on campus. Her testimony in that courtroom illuminated the immeasurable trauma that sexual assault creates.

She also brought to attention another important and painful aspect of her experience: how she was treated afterward.

On that night in 2015, two graduate students passing by noticed the sexual assault taking place and confronted the attacker, 20-year-old Turner, whom then fled the scene.

Despite these witnesses, Miller’s own agency over her experience was minimized during the trial. As Miller

explained, “[Turner’s] attorney constantly reminded the jury the only one we can believe is Brock because she doesn’t remember. That helplessness was traumatizing.”

A traumatic event puts an individual at high risk for a multitude of mental health conditions, particularly anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The way that sexual violence cases are handled and imagined in the minds of the media and general public at large, further aggravates these conditions. As Miller recounted in her victim statement, “Instead of taking time to heal, I was taking time to recall the night in excruciating detail, in order to prepare for the attorney’s questions that would be invasive, aggressive and designed to steer me off course.”

According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), 90% of women who are survivors of rape report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, during the two weeks after their assault.

Survivors are also more likely to abuse drugs, practice unsafe sex or experience emotional problems or distress following their assault. These behaviors are also frequently long-term, and the treatment of survivors in the media or by authorities can aggravate these effects.

Chanel Miller had been known as “Emily Doe” until September of this

year, when her identity as the victim from Turner’s trial in 2016 became public. She published a memoir, titled “Know My Name,” which was released on Sept. 24. In many ways, this memoir was an opportunity to take ownership over her story.

The Netflix original miniseries “Unbelievable,” based upon the article “An Unbelievable Story of Rape” written

by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller in 2015, has brought the treatment of sexual violence survivors into the recent spotlight as well. The series portrays the true story of a woman, known as “Marie,” who survived a sexual assault.

However, Marie is soon accused of lying and even charged with a gross misdemeanor for false accusation. Her story was ultimately validated when two detectives discovered through a similar case that Marie’s attacker was a serial rapist in Colorado. As The Fordham Ram’s contributing writer Katie Schulte wrote in her review of the series, “The denial of the survivor’s agency as seen through Marie only works to revictimize her.”

These two journeys of rape survival highlight the need for an improvement in both the way that we, as a whole, view rape and sexual violence, as well as a need to implement effective change in the protocols of involved systems.

In the United Kingdom in 2018, prosecutors were urged to drop charg-

es in rape cases that were deemed “weak” in order to improve conviction rates. In the United States, for every 1,000 sexual assaults that are reported to the police, just 46 will lead to an arrest, with 995 of the perpetrators avoiding incarceration.

These bleak statistics do not help survivors heal from their trauma.

While of course there must be due investigation into the validity of accusations, the rates of conviction, incarceration and even the reporting of the crime itself are markedly lower than those of other crimes.

Survivors lose an essential sense of agency when they are treated more like suspects than victims.

Instead of focusing on the heinous nature of the crimes committed, the defense often looks to show the jury that the victim deserved it someway. These ideas serve to worsen the toll that this trauma has on their mental health: Not only have they been traumatized, but now they are made to constantly question whether they deserves this.

The fear of sexual assault, especially in a college setting, contributes to an increased anxiety among female students in particular. One in five female students are projected to experience sexual assault, with first year students being the most common victims. The pres-

ence of the “hook-up culture” and party atmosphere of alcohol and drugs complicates the issue further.

The majority of these instances go unreported. Female students are often taught to take extra precaution in potentially dangerous situations in order to protect themselves. However, it is imperative that the repercussions for perpetrators be a strong deterrent against the acts themselves.

In the case of Chanel Miller, the judge’s concern and ultimately light sentencing prioritized the attacker’s future. The focus was on the potential consequences to Turner’s swimming career rather than the trauma that Miller had to endure and would continue to face in lasting emotional effects. With the world now knowing her name, we can hope that the authority and agency of survivors of sexual violence will continue to increase as they walk in Miller’s footsteps. As Miller put it herself, “It is enough to be suffering. It is another thing to have someone ruthlessly working to diminish the gravity of validity of this suffering.”

If you are struggling with mental health issues, do not hesitate to contact the following resources: Fordham University Counseling and Psychological Services (RH): 718-817-3725 Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800273-8255

Eclectic Rapper Danny Brown Excels Legend Stature on “uknowhatimsayin”

By SAM HADELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Danny Brown is no stranger to critical acclaim. His past works, like “XXX” and “Atrocity Exhibition,” showcased his eclectic ear that has contributed to the larger than life persona he is known for today.

Brown is comfortable with a lack of limelight, and he uses this to his advantage. He exists in this pocket of hip-hop that is generally geared towards older, more experienced listeners, which gives him the ability to create beyond the bounds of what is current. He truly is in his own lane, and it is

gleamingly obvious on this new LP. Every project that Brown delivered in recent years has been a completely different and unique array of his depressive and nihilistic content. His ability to flow over any type of production has resulted in some of rap’s most unconventional yet well-crafted moments in modern memory.

Though in the past his work was at times too scattered for cohesion, on this record, with the help of executive producer Q-Tip, Brown nails down the formula for quality on “uknowwhatimsayin.”

Q-Tip, Paul White and JPEGMAFIA provide Brown with some of the best beats of his career on

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

Danny Brown recently dropped his album "uknowhatimsayin."

this LP, creating a soundscape that Brown effortlessly maneuvers through.

The difference between this album and his past work is apparent upon taking an intimate look at the lyrical content. In Brown’s earlier albums “XXX” and “Atrocity Exhibition,” there was an aire of desperation attached.

There was little to no hope for the listener to latch on to, with the result being records filled with despair and dread.

On this album, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Though the record still leaves you with some of the haunting sentiments frequent in his past work, his newfound success leads him to deliver a perspective along the path of redemption.

Danny Brown is completely necessary in today’s hip-hop world, and he exemplifies that on this record.

His grounds in traditional hiphop and experimental production create the most masterful moments on this album.

In regards to technicality, he is at his sharpest. Songs like “Dirty Laundry” show off his exquisite flows and lyrics. He does not let up throughout the whole album, a testament to his talent and ability.

With only a few features on the album, all of which adding to the continuity of the record, it is an utterly personal product from Brown.

We have not heard a lot from him in between this project and

“Atrocity Exhibition,” and a lot has changed since then.

He went from being a niche rapper that mostly existed on Reddit to a toptier main act in the older hiphop crowd.

On some scale, he has gotten bigger and finally garnered the success he never felt he would achieve, and I think that is what lead to the positive aftertaste this project brings.

Danny Brown has been weaving through hip-hop fan communities for years, and on this record he has finally solidified himself as a legendary veteran.

Brown has come through with one of the most wellrounded projects of the year and it is completely refreshing.

In a world where your average rapper is not old enough to have his permit, it is revitalizing to have a seasoned star in the sport deliver a project that speaks to one's true potenTEMPLATE COURTESY OF FACEBOOK tial.

GRAPHIC BY KIERAN PRESS-REYNOLDS/THE FORDHAM RAM

CULTURE

October 9, 2019

Page 17

Drink Responsibly: Plant-Based Milks

By MAGGIE ROTHFUS AND RACHEL GOW You hear it when someone says their Starbucks order; you see it when you stroll down the grocery store aisle; they’re popping up more and more — non-dairy milks. What began as a narrow market for those with lactose intolerances has blossomed into a growing industry of plant-based milks.

With so many, how can one know which is best? The Ram picked out eight plant-based milks — almond (unsweetened), soy, coconut, banana, rice, pea, hemp and oat — to compare on the bases of taste, sustainability, affordability and nutrition.

Almond is arguably the most popular plant-based alternative. Sitting at $4.50 per half gallon at Cherry Valley, it can be purchased for as low as $2.99 at Whole Foods. While its popularity and availability are enticing, effects on the environment should be considered — an Oxford study found that a 200 ml glass of almond milk requires 74 liters of water to produce, which is more than a typical shower.

Another demystifying aspect of almond milk is that tree nuts are a common allergen.

Gabe Perez, FCRH ’20 voiced his opinion: “Really watery, tastes like almonds. It’s not milk. I wouldn’t put it in my coffee; it would just ruin it.”

Soy received slightly better reviews. “[It’s] somewhere in between [whole and skim milk],” Justine Engel, FCRH ’20, commented. This renders it a good option for those who prefer dairy milk. A quart of soy milk is available for $3.49 at Cherry Valley and $1.99 at Whole Foods.

Reviews compared coconut milk to tasteless juice.

“I just don’t like the idea of pulp in my milk,” Perez said. “That’s why I drink OJ.” A half gallon of So Delicious coconut milk is available for $4.99 at Whole Foods and Cherry Valley.

One of the newest alternatives is Mooala’s banana milk. With real banana puree, cinnamon and no added sugar, it has a 2% milk–consistency and Mooala suggests usage similar to regular milk.

The consensus from the Ram tast-

COURTESY OF RACHEL GOW/THE FORDHAM RA,

A variety of plant-based milks now saturate the market. The Ram sampled hemp, oat and soy, among others.

ers is that it makes for a sweet treat.

“It’s a dessert milk,” Katelyn Cody, FCRH ’20, said.

However, banana milk’s fatal flaw is its price — a whopping $6.99 for a 1.5 quart bottle at Whole Foods.

“Rice drink” is another option, a suitable title due to the milk’s thin quality.

“We’re really stretching the definition of milk here. That’s not milk; that’s rice water. … I’m gonna give it a zero ’cause it’s not even milk,” said Perez.

However, Engel found positives in the beverage.

“It would be okay with cereal, I think,” she said. This is better than skim milk.” But with the most amount of emissions after dairy milk and second to almond milk in water use, it is not the most sustainable option. A half gallon of Rice Dream can be found at Whole Foods for $4.39, as well as at Cherry Valley.

Pea milk is another newcomer, most commonly produced by Ripple. A strong alternative nutritionally, it performed well with students taste-wise.

They likened it to a better, creamier, more sustainable version of almond milk. A 1.5-quart container of Ripple’s pea milk is available at Whole Foods for $5.49.

Hemp, while nutritious, was found to taste the worst.

“That’s not milk, that’s a curse,” said Perez. “I cannot believe how bad that tasted. Hemp is diseased.”

Perez and Engel agreed that the drink leaves a “tingling” and “bitter” aftertaste in your throat. It is only avail-

able at Whole Foods for $4.39 per quart.

Oat milk, made popular by the Swedish brand Oatly, has found its way into other popular brands such as Silk and Quaker Oats. Oatly’s half gallon of original, fat and nonfat can be purchased at Whole Foods for $4.99 and Cherry Valley for $5.99.

Oat proves to be one of the most sustainable options by wasting the least amount of water, according to BBC. Oat milk received the best reviews from the Ram’s tasters.

“That’s the best. Undisputed. …

It’s insane how close this is to real milk,” said Perez.

While taste plays a big factor, nutrition is also essential for consumers.

Dairy milk contains large amounts of calcium and protein, and campaigns such as “Got Milk” have encouraged Americans to seek these nutrients.

If you desire a dairy alternative with a close nutritional makeup to regular milk, pea is one of the best options, containing 8 grams of protein, the same as one cup of 2% milk, and almost half of one’s daily recommended calcium intake.

Soy milk also boasts a high intersection between calcium and protein, with 30% of one’s recommend calcium and 7 grams of protein.

But, as Engel pointed out during the Ram’s tasting, soy milk has estrogen-mimicking qualities which

may be bad for women. According to Mayo Clinic, injesting more than a "moderate” amount of soy products can put you at risk of hormonallysensative cancers like breast cancer.

While none of these investigations prove causation, consumers may want to consider soy milk’s impact on their hormones before ingesting large quantities.

Other plant-based milks provide varied nutrition in comparison to dairy milk. Almond and hemp have almost no protein but provide an impressive array of other vitamins.

Almond has a comparable amount of calcium to dairy milk, while hemp provides almost half of the recommended daily omega-3. Similarly, oat milk is low in protein and high in sugar content, but fortified with half of one’s vitamin B12 intake as well as 20% of both one’s Vitamin A and D recommendations. Banana milk may be the least nutritious option with small amounts of protein, calcium and other vitamins.

An assessment of these plant-based milks may make the switch from dairy milk seem advantageous.

However, it is the ubiquity of dairy milk that often pushes coffee and cereal aficionados to choose it over nondairy options, especially for a population of students who often prioritize convenience over sustainability. How accessible are these non-dairy options for Fordham students?

Almost all on campus eateries provide one, if not more, non-dairy

options. P.O.D. sells a variety of soy and almond milk, including sweetened and flavored varieties. These can be purchased with DCB and used by students who make coffee or eat cereal in their dorms. If supplies are running low at P.O.D., or a student prefers another plant-based milk, Cherry Valley across the street boasts an impressive variety.

They have almond, soy, oat, rice, cashew and coconut as well as variations specifically designed for coffee.

If this assortment still does not satisfy plant-based ambitions, the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle, a frequent stop for Rose Hill and Lincoln Center students, is a haven for non-dairy milk. All options discussed in this article as well as other nut milks not sampled can be purchased here.

Non-dairy milks, although a more dismal array, can also be found at coffee shops, including both BKG and Starbucks on campus and Dunkin Donuts on Fordham Road. Dunkin Donuts offers only almond milk as an alternative, while Starbucks has almond, soy and coconut.

However, students must ask for these non-dairy alternatives at the counter — they are not available in the black thermoses by the sugar.

BKG in Dagger Johns has a comparable number of choices, but is the only eatery on campus where oat milk can be substituted.

The cafeteria, Salt & Sesame and Urban Kitchen also provide almond, soy or both milks as coffee and cereal options.

As we broaden our conception of milk to include liquids made from blended almonds and soaked rice, it can seem daunting to consider which of these options is best.

Some are more sustainable or provide an abundant array of vitamins. Others, as Perez poetically said, “should be burned with fire.”

Try almond milk in your coffee, soy over cereal or banana in your smoothies — none of these are wrong ways to consume plant-based milks if they are decisions made with insight.

Do not simply be a consumer, but an informed one.

Drink milk responsibly.

Who’s That Kid? | It’s Emily Leaman, GSB ’20!

Senior Battles Loneliness With Home-Cooked Meals

By COLETTE NOLAN EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Emily Leaman, GSB ’20, has a lot on her plate, literally. She, along with three other friends, started a project to help students at Fordham feel less lonely. The Provecho Project aims to bring students together for a comforting home-cooked meal in order to dispel some of the loneliness many students often feel while at college.

Leaman says her inspiration for getting involved with the Provencho Project was the way she felt most loved and accepted when at the dinner table surrounded by her loved ones The project allows college students to either host and cook dinner or come as a guest.

“It’s kind of like Airbnb but for a meal,” Leaman said.

Leaman was able to get the Provecho Project up and running with the help of the social innovation col-

laboratory, the Fordham Foundry and her co-founders, Joe Zoyhofski, GSB ’21, Alex TenBarge, GSB ’21, and Liam Scott, FCRH ’21.

Leaman and her co-founders all experienced a deep-rooted loneliness and disconnection from their community while at Fordham. Research into loneliness showed them that 46% of Americans say they feel lonely.

“That statistic is really startling to me, especially living in the most populated city in the world,” Leaman said.

She cites this as one of the main reasons she became involved with The Provecho Project. Alongside that, Leaman believes that a cook’s identity is infused in the things they create, making The Provecho Project an opportunity for cooks and guests to get to know each other on a different, more personal level.

Leaman also cites the collegiate “takeout culture” as another major reason for her involvement with The Provecho Project. Many college students

order takeout as a quick and inexpensive means of feeding themselves. Leaman believes this can actually add to a student’s loneliness.

“The takeout culture…produces a massive amount of waste and really separates us from where our food comes from,” she said.

She believes knowing who made your food is just as important as knowing what’s in it.

“I think it’s really important and grounding to know who made your food,” she stated.

What began as a way for Leaman and her co-founders to quash the loneliness they felt upon coming to college has grown into a fully realized vision. The Provecho Project’s mission statement is contained almost entirely within the name. “‘Buen provecho’ is a Spanish term that’s often said like ‘bon appetit,’” Leaman said. “It means respect for the person who made the food, celebrating the food that’s made and

eating it together.”

While The Provecho Project was born and raised at Fordham, Leaman and her co-founders are looking to expand to New York University and other New York City colleges.

“I really believe eating meals together and sharing home-cooked

meals together is really special,” Leaman said.

The Provecho Project is on Instagram as @provechoproject. Perhaps not everyone has culinary skills, but Emily Leaman believes that everyone can benefit from the community created by enjoying a meal together.

COURTESY OF EMILY LEAMAN

Emily Leaman, GSB ’20 wants students to connect over home cooked meals.

CULTURE

Page 18

October 9, 2019

The Opening Of SNL Was Dead Among Viewers

By SARAH LOBDELL

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) season 45 premiere, which aired on Sept. 28, received its lowest season opener ratings since 2014.

The episode was hosted by Woody Harrelson, an American actor and playwright known for his role in the sitcom “Cheers,” and featured musical guest, Billie Eilish, who is most recently known for her 2018 album “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO.”

According to Nielsen’s 56-metered markets, the episode averaged a rating of 4.1 out of 10 among households collected from live and same-day data. Nielson’s 25-metered market also revealed that the episode averaged a 1.6 out of 10 among the coveted 18 to 49 year old advertiser demographic. Compared to the 2018 season premiere, Saturday’s episode experienced a 15% decrease in overall viewership and a sizable 30% drop among viewers aged 18 to 49.

However, this episode received ratings on par with last season’s finale,

COURTESY OF FLICKR

The premiere of “Saturday Night Live” was recieved poorly by fans.

which was also given a 4.1 out of 10 from the metered markets. In addition, it seems that this episode’s statistics were in sync with premiere weeks Household Using Television (HUT) data, which suggests viewership dropped 7% among households and 12 % among adults aged 18 to 49 during the week of Sept. 23 through Sept. 29 compared to the fall 2018 statistics.

Perhaps the season premiere received such low ratings because the host, Woody Harrelson, did not seem to be the star of many sketches and thus did not get a chance to showcase the comedic talent that brought him fame in the first place. Unfortunately, “Saturday Night Live” seems to have sidelined him, even though they brought him back on set for a fourth time and gave him the honor of hosting the season premiere.

Throughout the episode, Harrelson plays father figures, such as Joe Biden, a football coach and a disinterested dad, and although I believe he played these roles well, the audience did not get the opportunity to see him explore other personas. In my opinion, the most avant garde role Harrelson played was the farmer Hank in the “Apple Picking Ad” where he was able to drive the comedy more than “SNL” cast members, Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon.

Although Harrelson was side-

lined most of the episode, his monologue in the beginning of the show perfectly showcased his humor and charm. In an effort to show the audience that he makes no mistakes in his newly improved fashion sense and speech, he repeatedly corrects himself after stumbling and making comments which he realizes may be offensive.

I found humor in the overly considerate nature of his comments and thought he did a great job mocking political correctness without bigotry. To round out his monologue, Harrelson ends the skit by ripping off his tuxedo and revealing silk pajamas underneath, making fun of his not-so-improved fashion sense. I thought this touch at the end lightheartedly mocked the host's imperfection in fashion and speech, tying the skit together nicely.

This episode also effectively employs the use of repetition. In the “Inside the Beltway” skit for example, Harrelson as pundit Walter Dale constantly repeats the phrase “this feels like a turning point,” while Kenan Thomspon as Quincy Maddox brings out the humor in this statement by constantly responding with “ain’t nothin’ gonna happen” to counter Dale’s assumption that the government is going to hold Trump accountable for his actions.

This episode also employs the use of repetition in the “DNC Town Hall” sketch, where Harrelson as Joe Biden repeats various punchlines

and frequently uses creepy “Uncle Joe” gestures and tones.

Although I enjoyed how the skit showcased each 2020 democratic presidential election candidate and thought the cast did a good job accurately portraying their personas, the skit was ten minutes long and thus likely lost the audience’s attention.

While the episode employed repetition well and featured a great opening monologue, some skits such as “Roadside Museum” or “World’s Biggest Cheeto Museum” were disappointing. It seems that the producers tried to think out of the box for this sketch, but it was a little too out of the box for viewers like me.

Although it does stand out and was memorable, I felt like I was waiting for a punchline that would bring the skit to life. In my opinion, the sketch’s biggest flaw is that is did not have a joke running throughout that tied it together.

Overall, I think the low ratings were harsh for the season 45 premiere, but “SNL” has certainly created better content in the past.

However, this episode was highly political and thus may have rubbed some viewers the wrong way, especially since the upcoming 2020 election is bringing the polarized state of our country to a head, as people begin to reflect on the Trump years and think about who they want to lead our country for the next four years.

Tekashi Snitch-9: Looking Into 6ix9ine’s Wild Trial

By TAYLOR MASCETTA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A year ago, Tekashi 6ix9ine, real name Daniel Hernandez, believed he was the next big star. Every one of his singles rocketed to the top of the Billboard charts, and his rivalries with other rappers dominated Twitter.

Now, the rainbow-haired phenomenon finds himself locked behind bars, facing 47 years to life in prison.

How did the young stud with so much potential put himself in such a position?

In November 2018, Hernandez was arrested just two days before the release of his debut album, “Dummy Boy.” Authorities accused him of several federal charges, including racketeering, firearm possession and organized gang activity. Hernandez, along with his ex-manager Kifano “Shotti” Jordan, bodyguard Faheem “Crippy” Walter and three others, were taken into custody and questioned about their association with a notorious NYC gang, the Nine Trey Bloods.

Although not much is known about them, the Nine Trey Bloods are feared. This violent street gang exudes control over many East Coast cities.

According to the New York Times, authorities believe that the Bloods deal heroin, crack cocaine, marijuana and additional pharmaceuticals.

The gang members also allegedly distribute counterfeit dollars and are potentially involved in sex trafficking of women. Authorities have been attempting to pin down members of the Bloods for years, and Hernandez is their newest source of information.

Hernandez joined sometime in 2017 to boost his street credibility,

according to his testimony. In return, he would provide them with stacks of cash. His involvement started with a few brief cameos of Bloods in his music video for the hit single “Gummo.”

However, his hunger for fame persuaded him to go deeper to pursue the clout he desired.

However, this led to increased involvement in illegal activities and many new enemies. Hernandez needed an intimidation factor to protect himself, so he flexed his Nine Trey involvement. He hired Bloods to fire at rival rappers Casanova and Chief Keef on two separate occasions, robbed rivals at gunpoint in early 2018 and helped sell a kilogram of heroin in 2017.

In 2018, Hernandez flipped the switch on his old crew and decided to cooperate with the authorities immediately following his arrest. Now serving as a governmental witness, Hernandez recently partook in a three-day

testimony against many of his former fellow gang members.

The most recent development in Hernandez’s testimony is the conviction of two of his previous confidants, former bodyguard Anthony “Harv” Ellison and Aljermiah “Nuke” Mack.

Hernandez testified against the pair on Sept. 17, 2019, and they were found guilty on Oct. 3. Ellison was convicted of kidnapping Hernandez in July 2018. During this ordeal, Hernandez was confronted by three hooded men, including Ellison, amid a dispute over the rapper’s ties to the gang.

He was subsequently assaulted and knocked unconscious.

According to the New York Times, court records say “Mr. Ellison forced him to say three times that he was not part of Nine Trey, while the second abductor punched him repeatedly in the

head. After that, he said, the second man urged Mr. Ellison to kill him.” Following the beating, Ellison and two others stole jewelry worth $750,000 and between $15,000 to $20,000 in cash.

Aljermiah Mack, a high-ranking Nine Trey member, was convicted of dealing millions of dollars of narcotics. He is believed to have dealt MDMA, heroin and fentanyl. Mack, along with Ellison, both face life in prison and will be sentenced in Febuary 2020. The conviction of these two Nine Trey leaders is a major victory for authorities.

The testimony has also exposed other celebrities of Nine Trey involvement. On the third day of his trial, Hernandez identified Jim Jones, a Harlem-based rapper, as a voice on a Nine Trey phone conversation.

The voice considered to be Jones was recorded saying “Now he got to

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Daniel Hernandez, known by fans as Tekashi 6ix9nine, testifed against fellow gang members in an effort to lessen his sentence.

get violated,” which is thought to be referring to Hernandez himself.

Hernandez has also accused mega-star Cardi B of Nine Trey involvement. He stated that he didn’t pay attention to her work, but knew that Nine Trey members were also present in her videos. Her representatives have vehemently denied his claims, providing a statement to Billboard.

In response to his claims, Cardi posted a popular meme of Keke Palmer saying “I don’t know who this man is.” She has denied involvement with Nine Trey itself but admitted to being involved with a different set of Bloods as a teenager.

Throughout the trial, the Internet dubbed him “Tekashi Snitch-9.”

Memes of Hernandez revealing secrets, such as the Krabby Patty formula and the identity of who let the dogs out, went viral.

However, not everyone is making light of the young star exposing others to save his own skin. Many see his actions as cowardly. Popular rap star Snoop Dogg contrasted Hernandez with his friend Martha Stewart, posting on Insta, “I invite you all to remember Martha Stewart snitched on NOT ONE soul during her trial, Baby girl kept it 10 toes down and ate that prison sentence by herself, like the true baddie she is.”

However, it must be noted that his testimony could help bring down Nine Trey and save hundreds of lives.

Nevertheless, the case drags on, and America is drawn in regardless.

Hernandez’s fate is in the hands of the court now. Everyone must wait and see if his revelations will be enough to save him.

CULTURE

October 9, 2019

Page 19

“All Shook Up” Begins Mimes and Mummers Season

By DYLAN BALSAMO

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

In a time and place where the inevitable reality is unavoidable and all the human brain wants is an escape from it all, it’s important to find the luxuries in whatever form they come in, and they are nothing but good, old fashioned fun.

That fun is what fuels us day to day. And that fun is what the Mimes and Mummers are offering the Fordham community with their production of “All Shook Up.” The Mimes’ staging of the 2004 musical, set to the music of Elvis Presley with a book by Joe DiPietro, is shiny, funny, top-tapping and even heartfelt — all of the things that make the American musical theatre tradition so unique.

From “Mamma Mia” to “The Cher Show,” jukebox musicals are currently all the rage in the theatre world, and that fad has come to Fordham in the form of one of music history's brightest stars.

“All Shook Up” tells the story of a small town in the 1950’s midwest that is dreary and lifeless until a “hip-swiveling, guitar-playing roustabout” Chad (played in this production by Matthew Tobin, GSB ’22) is released from prison, turning everything on its head with his music.

He unintentionally wins the heart of a young female mechanic,

Natalie (Elena Smith, FCRH ’23), employs the help of a new sidekick in an awkward, young man named Dennis ( Josh Steckler, FCRH ’23), chases after intelligent museumowner Miss Sandra ( Julia Rose Herman, FCRH ’20) and upsets the town mayor, Matilda Hyde (Kate Courter, FCRH ’20).

The show has plenty of other plot lines happening simultaneously, mostly from Natalie’s father Jim (Michael Rinaldi, FCRH ’20), the owner of the local Honky-Tonk

Sylvia (Ashley Morales, FCRH ’23), Sylvia’s daughter Lorraine (Alex Madanlakis, FCRH ’20) and Mayor Hyde’s militarybound son Dean ( Jack Kennedy, FCRH ’23).

All of the fun of “Footloose,” “Grease” and rock and roll music comes together to make “All Shook Up” a recipe for a fun night at the theatre. And what director Coleman Ray Clark has done is lead a team and production that has translated that for-

mula to the Collins Auditorium stage.

The company of this show, which also features an exuberant and talented ensemble, comes together to make music that is half a century old feel contemporary and compassionate.

The energy is consistently high, the dancing is crisp and above all, the harmonies are tight enough to give the ensemble numbers even more zest and feeling. It’s rock and roll.

COURTESY OF MIMES AND MUMMERS

Mimes and Mummers will put on their first show of the year, “All Shook Up,” through Columbus Day weekend.

The pit orchestra is also strong, guiding its actors to the common goal of recreating the sound of the King. Led by musical director Ryan Buchanan, the band — made up of a strong rhythm section and a few horns consistent to the time period — sets the pace for the whole production, helping the actors keep their energy high while also staying together.

Like all great performances, it’s a balance of mathematical thought and heart-leading passion.

All of that is juxtaposed by the source material that has its weakness. “All Shook Up” is certainly not a work that is renowned for its depth and sense in terms of plot. But that is to be expected; nobody currently attending college ever watched “Teen Beach Movie” with the expectation of studying a rich storyline. Nevertheless, the Mimes soar in a production that was made to feel like an Elvis concert itself.

With all of the right puzzle pieces to make their show feel like they’ve been taken back to the times of Elvis Presley, “All Shook Up” should be a hit among the Fordham theatre community and all of those who come to see it. It will kick off the Mimes and Mummers’ 2019-20 season with a bang.

“All Shook Up” will be in the Collins Auditorium ThursdaySaturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

Ram Crossword: I Go Back (To The Future) Across 1 He bullied George McFly 5 Character who accidentally goes back to 1955 10 Reebok Rival 14 Largest continent 15 “May ___ ___ this dance?”

16 Nickname for “a very small child” 17 “LOL” alternative 18 Authorized 19 A tie that Clint Eastwood would wear 20 Kawhi Leonard, Joel Embiid, James Harden, for example 22 An Egyptian’s neighbor

24 “Episode Number ” (abbrv.)

25 Less is this 26 Broncos coach Vic 29 Close office mate 33 A hinged, moveable section of a wall 34 Prefix for a poison 35 Motorists aid org.

36 Wall Street letters 37 Placed or set down 38 Snub-nosed dogs 39 Texter’s way to say “I’ve heard enough” 40 Fashion designer Hilfiger 41 Soccer keeper for those bad at spelling.

42 Military academy in Colo-

Down 1 Animal House 2 I cry, but more intensely 3 World cup org.

4 Pagan deity, to a non-pagan 5 Pepperidge farm cookie 6 “Don’t try to be ______” 7 Tattered clothes 8 FDR program 9 Uncleaned teeth 10 Arresting officer 11 If Apple made children’s playthings 12 African tree nut used for Coke 13 School on the Thames 21 Bob Barker gameshow (abbv.)

23 Second strongest material in Minecraft 25 Walk leisurely 26 Orange soda brand 27 “Turandot” librettist 28 A polite refusal

CREATED BY: KEVIN DINEEN

ANSWERS TO ISSUE 15

rado Springs 44 Contradicts 45 British prefix for plane 46 John whom you can’t see 47 Snake-haired woman 50 Car from this puzzle’s theme 54 “Better Call ____” 55 Skype alternative 57 Ye ____ Shoppe 59 Changes bed pans 60 “_ __ on the ponies” 61 Kids do it, outside 62 Made a mistake 63 Paternal units

ANSWERS IN ISSUE 17

29 “___ __ a River” 30 Hawaiian island 31 Philly football mascot 32 Demolish completely 34 Transmission repair chain 37 Marty McFly’s mom 38 Instant photo 40 These little piggies 41 Pat’s Philly cheesesteak competitor 43 Defective 44 Sang forcefully

46 Cut off 47 Suggested retail price of a car (abbv.)

48 James ____ Jones 49 Long-lasting, in commercial names 51 Actor Idris 52“Added” minus a double letter 53 Brooklyn basketball organization 56 Scoundrel, mongrel

SPORTS

October 9, 2019

Beyond the Scoreboard: NBA Finds Itself in Full-Court Trap

By ANDREW POSADAS

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Over the weekend, the National Basketball Association (NBA) found itself in perhaps its biggest conundrum to date. Its relations with China are now on thin ice after Daryl Morey’s recent tweet supporting Hong Kong. Now, the league is desperately balancing itself on the proverbial fence that sits between morality and financial growth.

No professional sports league in North America is more progressive than the NBA. For example, Silver and the NBA decided to move the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte, N.C., due to its disapproval of the state’s House Bill 2, which limited anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the state.

When the National Basketball Players Association called for the removal of former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2014 for making offensive racist comments, Silver and the league listened. Sterling would ultimately be given an indefinite suspension from the NBA and still sits in exile today from the sport that earned him immense profit.

Enter general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey.

On Friday, Morey went on social media behind just seven words. His tweet was quite simple: “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”

Morey’s tweet was in reference to the escalating tensions between Hong Kong and China over an extradition bill that would have allowed some criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial. However, civil rights protestors believe this bill is just another attempt by China to strengthen its influence further in Hong Kong.

The former British colony was originally promised a high level of autonomy when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. However, citizens of Hong Kong feel China’s true intentions are to push an antigovernment movement.

Since June, approximately 2,363 people have been arrested in connection with the ongoing protests.

On Tuesday, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam warned that the Chinese military could step in if an uprising for democratic reforms continues on its current trajectory.

In regards to Morey’s tweet, the reaction from China was immediate and filled with outrage.

The Chinese consulate in Houston described Morey’s tweet as an “erroneous comment.”

Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta took little time to express his dissatisfaction with Morey, saying, “Listen... Daryl Morey does NOT speak for the Houston Rockets.” Fertitta made his stance abundantly clear by adding, “we are NOT a political organization.”

Even Rockets superstar guard and former MVP James Harden came out and apologized for Morey’s tweet. Harden said in a press conference, “We apologize. You know, we love China. They show us the most important love.”

Morey would eventually come back on Twitter to issue his own apology, saying, “I did not intend for my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China… I have had a lot of opportunities since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives.”

Essentially, Morey is apologizing for supporting the growth of democracy in a country that is governed through the Communist Party. Here on U.S. soil, many would probably stand on the side of Morey. Our country was founded on the development and infrastructure given by the democratic system. Unfortunately, our country was also founded by dollars. Millions and millions of dollars.

According to Sports Illustrated, the league signed a new five-year with Tencent, the NBA digital rights holder in China, worth reportedly half a billion dollars. Now, Tencent announced anything related to Morey, which includes Rockets game coverage, will be suspended. For the franchise, this is a devastating blow considering how popular the team is over there.

Since drafting Chinese-born Yao Ming with the number one overall pick in 2002, the Rockets popularity exploded, making them comparable to the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees in China. Ming, now head of the Chinese Basketball Association, was reportedly furious with Morey’s comments, and Silver plans to meet with Ming before Thursday’s exhibition between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets.

Silver is doing everything in his power to please both sides involved. He is saving face by apologizing profusely for Morey, saying he hopes the NBA can be used as a “unifying force to bridge cultural divides and bring people together.”

Yet Silver also reiterated that the NBA will not “put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues.”

Silver clearly understands that the financial benefits of the leagues partnership with China is much too crucial for the NBA to outright support Morey, considering he is not necessarily wrong in his view.

But Silver can not co-sign that.

What he also will not do is begin controlling what comes out of the mouth of his employees, especially on political matters. The NBA prides itself on hearing out its players when they speak up on important social matters. Unfortunately, this particular situation won’t be resolved anytime soon. Before that Lakers-Nets exhibition, reporters will be rushing to ask the face of the league, LeBron James, for his take on the entire matter.

What if he shows support for Morey’s freedom of speech? More critically, what if LeBron ends up saying he stands with the people of Hong Kong in their pursuit of democracy?

Inversely, there are arguments to be made against saying anything at all. A majority of NBA players have shoe deals and sponsorships in China. Will they step up and give their opinions on this matter if they receive the same backlash as Morey? Remember: they have much more to lose financially than Morey, who may end up without a job as this entire ordeal progresses.

Rest assured, Silver and the NBA has a lot of work ahead of themselves to keep China happy and to assure that no one else makes a detrimental comment about the situation without compromising their free speech. For now, the fence between morality and financial growth is sturdy enough to sit on.

I do not believe Daryl Morey is wrong in his words. His support is genuine. The problem is that his words go against everything his employer stands for when it comes to their current financial relations with China. Is partnering with a communist country in order to make money on a game morally right? Probably not.

But morals and ethical conduct did not help build the NBA as a global brand. Money was the foundation as it continues to sustain the NBA’s success. Thus, the NBA will continue prioritizing money over morals on and off the court.

COURTESY OF FLICKR

The NBA continues straddling the fence between what is morally acceptable and what makes financial sense.

Page 20

Women’s Soccer Finds Overtime Magic

By CHARLIE MAISANO STAFF WRITER

Ninety minutes was not going to be enough for the Fordham women’s soccer team not once, but twice last week in big wins against George Mason and VCU. Entering the contest on Thursday against George Mason, Fordham was 2–8–2. They had lost two games in a row and only scored seven goals total throughout the entire season. Like the Rams, the Patriots saw themselves in a similar situation. They entered the game with a 2–7–1 record, were winless in conference play and had lost three games in a row. Clearly, both teams needed a victory in order to boost confidence and most importantly, save their season.

The game was scoreless going into the halftime break but got very interesting in the second half. Fordham would get on the board first in the 66th minute, thanks to the first goal of the season by junior Maura Holst. Holst was awarded a penalty kick after a handball in the box by the Patriots, and she took advantage of the opportunity. It only took the Patriots four minutes to even the score at 1–1 courtesy of Shannon Lee. Lee headed in her first goal of the year inside the left post off of a corner kick by her twin sister, Emma.

With no one able to break the tie in regulation, the Rams looked to a familiar face to end the game in overtime. In the 94th minute, sophomore Claudia Cuicani collected a pass at the 30-yard line then booted a long cross all the way into the box. Waiting for it was Holst, who hit the ball backward with her head. It was deflected by George Mason goalie, Louisa Moser, but she was unable to corral the ball, and it rolled past the goal line for the win.

With Holst’s clutch game-winner, Fordham defeated George Mason for the first time ever in program history after seven previous meetings. Head coach Jessica Clinton knew exactly what prompted her team to respond this way following a tough stretch to start the year.

“Pressure,” she said. “The team knows that we need points in order to move forward. If you don’t score, you don’t earn three points.

They know that and they are fighting really hard to score. It’s really wonderful to watch. They

are digging in moments that they have not before, and players are stepping up.”

With a lot of momentum on their side, the Rams traveled to Richmond, Va. to face the VCU Rams on Sunday. They didn’t wait long to continue their hot streak, as senior Maggie Roughley scored four minutes into the game to give Fordham the early 1–0 lead. The Rams from the Bronx struck again to double the lead in the 27th minute after senior Juliana Mascelli put the ball in the back of the net on a corner kick that got by the defenders.

While the majority of first half was all Fordham, the second half was all VCU. The Rams from Richmond got one of the team’s leading goal scorers, Susanna Friedrichs, to cut the lead in half in the 61st minute and proceeded to tie the game in the 70th minute off of a Fordham own goal.

With the lead evaporated and the momentum firmly in the hands of the home team, Fordham dug deep and forced its second straight game into overtime.

Much like the game on Thursday, overtime didn’t last long in favor of the maroon and white. In the 92nd minute, Kristen Cocoza collected a cross in the box from Marissa Stanco and quickly fooled the VCU goalie. Brecht Haakma came out of the net thinking Cocoza would send a blast past her, but instead, the freshman forward bounced the ball into a wide goal for the win.

Although her team got the win, Clinton thought the other Rams did more in the second half to force the game into overtime.

“VCU simply came out harder and high pressed us more,” she said. “They came out tougher.

VCU’s coach was not happy walking into the locker room and I’m sure her players heard it. They simply came out with more fire then we did. Our group did the best they could in the 2nd half, but luckily, we put away two chances in the first half.”

After these hard-fought victories, the Rams get somewhat of a breather. They only have one game next week, instead of two, on Sunday at home against the University of Rhode Island. With new energy and some time off before their next game, the team is both in good spirits and in the best spot they’ve been all season thanks to their late-game heroics.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Women’s Soccer is starting to get much needed production on offense.

SPORTS

October 9, 2019

Page 21

Volleyball Falls to Saint Louis, Dayton

By GIGI SPEER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Friday, Oct. 4, Fordham Volleyball traveled to Saint Louis University and lost in a tight 3–2 match to the Billikens, losing no set by more than five points.

Despite the loss, the team showcased its toughness and competitive spirit as it won the third and fourth sets. The team even managed to get within one in the final set, coming back from a 12–8 deficit to score its final points on two kills from junior McKenna Lahr and one from freshman Aria De La Rosa to make the score 12–11 before the Billikens dominated for the final points and took the set 15–11.

Another strength of the Rams is their defensive performances, showcased in their 14 blocks across the match, while SLU only managed eight. Senior Elise Benjamin lead the way with seven blocks, while sophomore Joey Landeros followed with four and De La Rosa with three.

Offensively, Lahr racked up 12 kills in her clutch performance,

Benjamin added 11 and De La Rosa 10. Freshman Megan Brzozowski notched her seventh double-double of the year with 26 assists, 15 digs and three aces, while sophomore setter Makaela Tanaka added 14 assists and seven digs.

On Sunday, the Flyers took the win in three sets, 25–20, 25– 16, 25–20, as the Rams hit at a season-low hit rate of .069%.

Lahr continued to lead the pack, tallying eight kills, 12 digs, three blocks, an ace and an assist. Redshirt junior Olivia Fairchild and Landeros each added four kills, while Brzozowski had eight assists and Tanaka six.

Defensively, Benjamin contributed four out of the team’s total seven blocks, and senior libero Morgan Williams continued her climb up all-time rankings, now only 100 digs shy of Stephanie Frost’s 2006 record of 1,662, after her 18 against Dayton.

The Rams will be on the road yet again this week, as they head south to face Davidson on Friday, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. and Virginia Commonwealth Sunday at 1 p.m., before starting their home play next week.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Fordham Volleyball had a tough week after two Atlantic 10 losses.

By JIMMY SULLIVAN SPORTS EDITOR

For the ninth time since 2000, the Washington Redskins are rearranging the deck chairs on the NFL’s equivalent of the Titanic.

Jay Gruden is out after just over five years of mediocrity and ultimate failure that yielded just one playoff appearance and 49 losses — the most of any coach in that time period. Bill Callahan, of Oakland Raiders and Nebraska Football fame, will be the team’s interim coach. At 0–5, the Redskins and owner Dan Snyder decided now was the time to make a change, as if Gruden’s firing will change the culture for one of the league’s most inept franchises.

Of course, Gruden’s dismissal will not do this. He was fired simply because someone needed to take the fall for organizational incompetence, just like Norv Turner, Steve Spurrier, Mike Shanahan and others before him. The more pressing matter for Washington now, in addition to finding a new head coach, will be to find a good match for rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins, who has only played in one NFL game but has already had a tumultuous stint in Washington.

The Redskins took Haskins with the 15th pick of this year’s draft, and he was considered by many to be the second-best quarterback in the draft, behind Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray. The problem is that, according to a recent Washington Post report, Gruden didn’t want him and, even worse, Haskins figured that out. From this point of view, the firing of Gruden may have saved Haskins’ career, which is a wild statement to make until you consider the Redskins’ record with quarterbacks as of late.

This brings us to the real point here. We may look back at this five years from now and laugh because Haskins may have turned into one of the best quarterbacks in the league. The point? Player development is non-linear, and we shouldn’t expect instant gratification from all because a select few are able to provide it.

The Washington Redskins know this all too well. In the 2012 draft, Washington took Baylor signalcaller Robert Griffin III with the

second pick after the Colts took Stanford QB Andrew Luck with the first selection. Debates raged throughout the season as to who was better. Griffin was named Offensive Rookie of the Year after amassing just over 4,000 total yards and dragging the team to its first NFC East title since 1999.

However, RGIII tore his ACL and LCL in Washington’s playoff loss to Seattle and was never the same.

Luck hung it up this past August after persistent injuries over the past half-decade. Both were outlasted as starters by a trio of third and fourth-round picks — Russell Wilson, Nick Foles and Kirk Cousins — and all three have been to at least one Pro Bowl.

But Griffin and Luck had instant success in the NFL before leaving us to ponder what could have been.

There have been plenty of examples of late bloomers who have succeeded after initial setbacks thanks to improvements in their environment and abilities.

Rams quarterback Jared Goff had a horrific first-year under mediocre head coach Jeff Fisher. Goff took off when Sean McVay was hired — ironically, from the Redskins — before year two. While Goff appears to have taken a step back in year four, two straight playoff berths and a Super Bowl appearance didn’t seem possible at this time in 2016.

There have been plenty of others, as well. Drew Brees went 10– 17 in his first two years as an NFL starter. Troy Aikman, who went on to win three Super Bowls as the Cowboys’ starting QB in the ’90s, threw more interceptions than touchdowns in the first four years of his career. And Peyton Manning, possibly the greatest statistical quarterback in the history of the league, led the league in interceptions with 28 in his 1998 rookie

season.

Much of their eventual success can be owed to the environment around them: Manning, for example, got to work with renowned offensive coordinator Tom Moore for the first 12 years of his career and the two gelled after that rough rookie campaign. Aikman’s offensive coordinator, the aforementioned Norv Turner, helped guide him to three of his best years from 1991–1993. Brees, of course, revitalized his career with the help of Saints head coach Sean Payton, and the two now comprise the league’s second-longest quarterback-coach combination behind the Patriots’ Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

So what’s the point of all this?

Dwayne Haskins may struggle off the bat. He’s expected to get his shot to start on Sunday against the lowly Dolphins in a game one of the teams might win. In his first career appearance against the Giants on Sept. 29, Haskins threw 17 passes. Nine were completed, five hit the ground and three were caught by players on the other team. One would hope, against one of the worst teams the league has ever seen and without the coach who didn’t want him, that there’s nowhere to go but up from here.

But if Dwayne Haskins doesn’t significantly improve, don’t freak out. Success as an NFL quarterback is not cut-and-dried, and there are plenty of ups and downs along the way. A failure in 2019 doesn’t mean he’ll be a failure for the rest of his career.

There have been plenty of quarterbacks, including some of the best the league has ever seen. who were doubted the same way Haskins is now. They turned out okay, and, while Haskins may not be a Hall of Famer, he can too.

COURTESY OF FLICKR

Dwayne Haskins may not succeed in Washington, and that may not be his fault.

Varsity Calendar HOME AWAY Cross Country

Follow us on Twitter at @theram_sports

Volleyball Rowing Softball

Thursday Oct. 10

Saturday Oct. 12

Friday Oct. 11

Metropo;litan Championship 11:30 Davidson 7 p.m.

Sunday Oct. 13

VCU 1 p.m.

Head of the Housatonic TBD Adelphi/ Holy Cross

10 a.m./12:30 p.m.

Men’s Soccer

UMass 1 p.m.

Rhode Island 1 p.m.

Women’s Soccer Football

Georgetown 2 p.m.

Monday Oct. 14

Tuesday Oct. 15

Wednesday Oct. 16

Page 22

Women’s Tennis Impresses at Penn Invite

By MATT WEST

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Fresh off the team’s solid performance at the Army Invitational, Fordham Women’s Tennis traveled down the Philadelphia turnpike bringing swagger and confidence with them into the Hidden Duals Invitational at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sophomore Valeriya Deminova and freshman Avery Aude won A doubles at the Army Invitational last weekend. This sparked energy in their sophomore teammates Nicole Li and Genevieve Quenville. Both players looked impressive in their matches and made it to the semifinal round in the B doubles of the invitational.

On day one of the Hidden Duals at Penn, Fordham opened in doubles play where junior Arina Taluyenko and freshman Weronika Pociej got things rolling for the Rams with a 6–3 victory over St. John’s Oceane Garibal and Najah Dawson. Sophomore sensations Nicole Li and Genevieve Quenville followed this victory up with another convincing one over St. John’s Jenelle Downer and Kharkover 6–4. The stellar pair of Aude and Deminova could not finish the sweep of St. John’s, as the team fell to the Johnnies’ Milka Genkova and Camila Ordonez 6–4.

Fordham’s next opponent, Drexel, would give them more of a challenge, as the teams would split the doubles match series at two. Arina Taluyenko and Weronika carried their rhythm over from the St. John’s victory to defeat Drexel pair Salma Ziouti and Šárka Richterova 6–3.

Valeria Deminova and Avery Aude bounced back nicely with a dominating 6–2 victory over Drexel’s pair of Ghita Benhadi and Marta Martinez, but things quickly changed as Fordham duo Li and Quenville lost to Drexel’s

Mya Fuentes and Tara Veluvolu 6–4. The Rams’ luck got even worse, as senior Maia Balce and freshman Rachelle Yang couldn’t get past Drexel’s Katka Majorova and Cristina Corte Gonzalez, falling 6–4.

In singles play, the Rams’ Arina Taluyenko continued her strong play by going 3–0. Her first victory came against Penn’s Ashley Zhu. Taluyenko controlled every aspect of the match, winning 6–3, 7–5, 6–1. Going into day two, Taluyenko’s focus was on another level, as she won in a dominant fashion over Drexel’s Salma Ziouti 7–5, 6–2 going into her final match against St. John’s Milka Genkova. Taluyenko won easily 6–2, 6–4 and 10–6.

Avery Aude would follow behind Taluyenko as she got out to a quick start in her singles match, defeating Penn’s Clarise Huang 6–2, 6–3 then going on to beat Drexel’s Tara Veluvolu 3–6, 6–4, 10–2 in a back-and-forth battle.

Aude went into her last match against St. John’s Jenelle Downer looking to leave no doubt and that she did by winning 6–2, 6–2.

Freshman Weronika Pociej came out with something to prove in her singles match.

She was impressive in her victory over Drexel’s Mya Fuentes by winning 6–1, 6–4 and then defeating St. John’s Camila Ordonez in straight sets.

Fordham Women’s Tennis looks to take advantage of this off week and tweak some of its mistakes so that the team is ready for the ITA Regionals Oct. 17-22 in West Point. Look for the Rams to come aggressive and focused, being that this is the last invitational of the fall.

SPORTS

October 9, 2019

Water Polo Wins Three of Four at Troyer Tournament

By SABRINA BOYD CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Fordham Water Polo dominated in the pool during the team’s annual West Coast trip in California, leaving the Golden State with five wins. The Rams began with wins over Redlands and Mt. San Antonio. They continued to impress in the Gary Troyer Tournament with a thrilling overtime win against #16-ranked California Baptist and a win against Occidental.

Fordham was handed its only loss in the tournament by #9 UC San Diego, before closing it out with a win against Chapman.

The Rams now hold a 15–4 record on the season.

Fordham led 9–4 by the end of the first half against Redlands.

The goal deficit was shortened to three by the third quarter, but the Rams took a defensive stand during the fourth, not allowing a single goal and securing their win. The final score was 13–8 in favor of the Rams.

In their match against Mt. San Antonio, the Rams defensive play in the fourth once again prevented their opponent from scoring, resulting in the victory.

The end result was a 12–6 win for Fordham. Offensively, the Rams showed off their overall team strength, with nine different players putting points on the board by the end of the day.

The Rams began the Gary Troyer Tournament with a bang, ultimately triumphing over California Baptist for the first time in 11 meetings. Fordham pulled ahead to an 8–6 lead in the fourth, but Cal Baptist managed to equalize in the dying seconds, forcing overtime.

Senior Jake Miller-Tolt scored the game-winning penalty shot with a minute left to play, and senior Tristen Knoflick secured a steal to run out the clock. Both Miller-Tolt and sophomore Dimitris Koukias had three goals. Sophomore goalkeeper

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Water Polo took down its third nationally-ranked opponent on Friday.

Bailey O’Mara was the game’s star, racking up 17 saves in net and two steals. The game ended in an 11–10 overtime victory for Fordham. Against Occidental, the Rams had a surging lead from the start that never let up.

Miller-Tolt picked up his second hat trick of the day. Freshman Jason Hiremath and juniors Sam Wheeler and Gordan Rowland each scored two. The final score was a decisive 13–3 for Fordham.

The Rams were finally defeated by #9 UCSD. The Tritons led by six at the end of the 1st quarter and continued to increase their lead, which ended in a brutal 19–5 victory for UC San Diego. Fordham managed to turn things around in the final game against Chapman, maintaining a small lead by the end of the

half. The Rams then kicked into gear and outscored Chapman 11-5 over the final two quarters.

Jake Miller-Tolt was a superstar, with seven goals, two assists, two steals and two blocks. Senior Oscar Nomura also had a strong game, with four tallies and an assist during the game. The end result was an 18–10 win for the Rams.

Overall, Fordham’s California venture can be counted as a major success. The team has played very strongly this season.

Miller-Tolt said, “I think we all knew we had a good team, but definitely feels nice to come out and get some big wins to show that we are that good team.” The Rams are back in their own pool on Saturday, Oct. 19, where they will host Navy and Princeton.

The Navy game begins at 11 a.m.

Men’s Tennis Hosts Four-in-the-Fall

By DOMINIC CAPONE STAFF WRITER

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Women’s Tennis got some outstanding performances at Penn University.

Fordham Men’s Tennis is back in the Bronx, as the Rams hosted the Fordham Four-in-the-Fall tournament. Three tough opponents traveled to the Hawthorn/ Rooney Courts to duke it out: the Marist Red Foxes, Fairleigh Dickinson Knights and St. Francis of Brooklyn Terriers.

This two-day event was held over the weekend of Saturday, Oct. 5 and Sunday, Oct. 6.

Fordham had some good showings during its season opener at Quinnipiac, and the team looked to continue this energy at the tournament.

Junior Alex Makatsaria had no problems this weekend as he dominated winning the Becker singles title. The Singapore native bounced Marist’s Augusto Gonzalez Bonorino in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3. Makatsaria followed up with a 6-4, 6-2 victory

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Men’s Tennis was able to get some home cooking this past weekend.

over FDU’s Niclas Pietsch to advance to the flight final. He met Thomas Lake and escaped with 7-6(2), 6-2 win.

Makatsaria, who won Fordham player of the year last season, teamed up with Jofre Segarra in the Bryan double flight, winning 7-6 over FDU’s Andrei Oprizor and Taiga Koyama.

Steven Duka split his two matches in the Djokovic singles flight, defeating St. Francis’ Ste-

fan Gmijovic in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4 and then falling to Marist’s Kian Yazdi, 6-4, 6-3.

Fabian Mauritzson, who won the B Singles flight at the Quinnipiac Invitational, struggled this week, losing in his first round matchup against FDU’s Teodors Pukse, 5-7, 6-3, 10-3.

Fordham now has some time off before they travel to Philadelphia to compete in the ITA Regionals on Oct. 17-20.

SPORTS

October 9, 2019

Chris Hennessy New York Teams Kick Off 2019–20 Season The NHL season is in full swing, with each New York team completing two games by Sunday’s end. For the Rangers, it was an opening-night win against Winnipeg at the Garden by a score of 6–4, followed by a 4–1 beatdown of Ottawa on Saturday night.

The Devils suffered a brutal defeat to the Jets, losing a 4–0 lead to fall 5–4 in overtime. They followed that up the next day by losing 7–2 to Buffalo. The Islanders started their season with a 2–1 loss to Washington before a 4–1 win over Winnipeg on Sunday.

Starting with the Blueshirts, who had a near picture-perfect opening night at the Garden: they welcomed the Winnipeg Jets into MSG on Thursday night and walked away with a 6–4 victory. Goals from bigtime acquisitions Jacob Trouba and Artemi Panarin rang in the new year just how the optimistic Ranger fans wanted it to. This offseason was full of positivity for the Rangers, and that came to fruition on Thursday. That’s not to mention Kaapo Kakko’s stellar performance and Henrik Lundqvist’s 43 saves.

Then on Saturday, they traveled up to Ottawa to take on the lowly Senators, a game they should have won and did. The final was 4-1. Mika Zibenejad had a hat trick to get his season total to four goals already, and Alexander Georgiev made 31 saves. All in all, a stellar start for the Rangers, who don’t play again until they face Edmonton at home on Saturday.

The Devils’ start was exactly the opposite. Their home opener against Winnipeg started out great, as they built a 4–0 lead in the second period.

That was until Winnipeg scored four unanswered goals in the final 10 seconds of the second and third periods.

The game went to a shootout in which the Jets prevailed. A goal from newlyacquired Nikita Gusev provided a slim silver lining. They then traveled to Buffalo to take on the Sabres on Saturday, a game they dropped 7–2.

They did not test Carter Hutton, who only made 18 saves on 20 shots, and Mackenzie Blackwood gave up all seven goals on 36 shots. Less than ideal for a team that improved drastically this offseason. Jack Hughes has zero points, P.K. Subban and Gusev each have just one.

The Islanders kicked off their 2019-20 season at the Nassau Coliseum against their divisional foe, the Washington Capitals. In a tightly-contested game, they could not provide enough offense to match their stellar defense, only mustering up one goal on 26 shots. They lost 2–1. On Sunday, they played Winnipeg back on Long Island, coming out on top by a score of 4–1. The offense was much better than it was against Washington, with Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson, Anders Lee and Anthony Beauvillier all scoring their first goals of the season. Goaltender Thomas Greiss was superb on Sunday, while newcomer Semyon Varlamov was a little shaky against Washington. They take on Edmonton on Tuesday.

The Rangers have had the ideal start to the season, the Devils have experienced the opposite and the Islanders fall somewhere in between.

Early games prove important. Come playoff time, they can certainly make the difference.

Page 23

Anthony Cardone

Varsity Scores & Stats Football Fordham 24 Yale 48 (FOR) Kokosioulis: 8 REC, 136 YDS, TD Women’s Volleyball Fordham Saint Louis (FOR) Lahr: 12 K, 2 Tot Fordham Dayton (FOR) Fairchild: 5 K, 1 Tot

2 3 0 3

Women’s Tennis Penn Hidden Duals Individual Results Only (FOR) Taluyenko: 6-2, 4-6, 10-6 Men’s Golf Four-in-the-Fall Individual Results Only (FOR) Duka: 6-3, 6-4

Women’s Soccer George Mason Fordham (FOR) Holst: 2 G, 3 SH, 2 SOG

1 2

Fordham 3 VCU 2 (FOR) Cocozza: G, AST, 2 SH, SOG Men’s Soccer Fordham 1 Rhode Island 3 (FOR) Pieles: G, 3 SH, 2 SOG Fordham 1 Seton Hall 3 (FOR) Ricupati: G, 4 SH, SOG

Men’s Water Polo Fordham Redlands (FOR) Miller-Tolt: 6 G

12 6

Fordham #16 Cal Baptist (FOR) Koukias: 3 G

11 10

Fordham Occidental (FOR) Wheeler: 2 G

13 3

Fordham #9 UC San Diego (FOR) O’Mara: 9 SV, 3 ST

5 19

Fordham Chapman (FOR) Nomura: 4 G, AST

18 10

Jake Miller-Tolt

Kristen Cocozza

Senior

Freshman

Water Polo

Women’s Soccer

Cocozza’s performance in Saturday’s 3-2 win over VCU earned her Atlantic 10 Co-Rookie of the Week.

She earned a secondary assist on the first goal and put the third goal in the back of the net in overtime to secure the win.

Each week, The Fordham Ram’s sports editors honor one male athlete and one female athlete for their on-field performances as their “Athletes of the Week.”

News & Notes • Soccer Honored for Academics

Both Fordham Men’s and Women’s Soccer were honored with the United Soccer Coaches’ annual Team Academic Awards for the 2018-19 academic year. This is the 10th consecutive year both Rams teams have made the list of t10schools honored on both the men’s and women’s sides.

The Award was given to 992 individual collegiate soccer programs (345 men, 647 women) that earned a grade point average as a team of 3.0 or higher, and Fordham was one of 258 schools that received the honor for both their men’s and women’s programs. There were additionally 20 Atlantic 10 programs honored.

• Swimming & Diving Name Assistant The Fordham Swimming & Diving program has

a new addition to its coaching staff, as head coach Steve Potsklan announced this past week that Hayley Masi had been hired as an assistant coach.

Masi previously served as a head coach and as the aquatics director at Maine Maritime Academy, leading the Mariners in their inaugural NCAA season last year. The University of Massachusetts graduate coached five swimmers into the New England Intercollegiate Swimming & Diving Association Championship in 2018–19. In her time at UMass, she competed in the Atlantic 10 Championship all four years.

13 8

Fordham Mt. San Antonio (FOR) Agabs: 3 G

Athletes of the Week

Fordham Water Polo went 5-1 in another outstanding weekend, and once again, Miller-Tolt led the way for the Rams. He scored 27 goals over the six games, including two hat tricks in one day on against #16 California Baptist and Occidental.

Yankees Dominate Twins en

• Softball Sets Academic Record

This past week saw the release of the Easton

2019 All-America Scholar-Athletes, an annual list of collegiate softball players with a cumulative 3.5 GPA or higher for the past academic year, and the list included nine members of the Fordham Rams’ squad, a program record.

The nine honorees were Madie Aughinbaugh, Kelly Bright, Julia Martine, Brianna Pinto, Anne Marie Prentiss, Chelsea Skrepenak, Gigi Speer, Jordy Storm and Maria Trivelpiece. Trivelpiece graduated having been on the list all four years of her career, with her fellow graduate Skrepenak earning it twice.

• Cocozza Gets ROW Award

On Monday, the Atlantic 10 Conference an-

nounced its weekly soccer awards, among them the Women’s Soccer Rookie of the Week, and Fordham freshman Kristen Cocozza was given this past week’s co-honors, alongside Jessica Sheldon of Dayton. Cocozza was essential in Fordham’s 3-2 overtime victory over VCU on Saturday afternoon, as she earned a secondary assist on the Rams’ first goal and then scored the game-winner in overtime to seal the Fordham win. This is Cocozza’s first weekly honor.

–Compiled by Dylan Balsamo

Route to ALCS Well, that didn’t take long. A quick three-game series with the Twins and a win in all three games by scores of 10–4, 8–2 and 5–1 sent the New York Yankees on to the next round of the American League Championship Series.

The Yankees are still currently waiting on the outcome of a RaysAstros series that is heading to game four on Tuesday. The Yankees will play the winner of that series next.

But it’s another step closer to a World Series title for the Bombers.

The Yankees played well on both sides of the ball. Their pitchers — James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and Luis Severino — all had fantastic starts in the three games.

The bullpen shined once again by only giving up three earned runs in the series. Chad Green and Aroldis Chapman were the highlights of the bullpen, going scoreless in their outings with a combined five strikeouts in the series. This was a surprise, as they were facing the team who broke the record for most home runs in a single season, an offense filled with power from top to bottom in its lineup.

On the other side of the ball, the offense for the Yankees just did not stop. In game one, it scored 10 runs and jumped all over the Twins bullpen. DJ LeMahieu was 3-5 with a home run and four RBI. Edwin Encarnacion and Gleyber Torres both had clutch hits in the late innings to take the opener behind Paxton’s eight-strikeout performance. Gleyber Torres batted .417 in the series, Gregorius had a combined six RBI, and the Bombers hit a combined five home runs in the ALDS. In game two, they picked up right where they left off. After an Encarnacion RBI single in the first, it was over for Minnesota by the time the third inning rolled around. An inning capped off by seven runs, including a grand slam bomb into the second deck by Didi Gregorius, put the Twins into a shock, going down two games to none behind and outstanding performance by Masahiro Tanaka. His ERA in the postseason is under two.

The Yankees then headed to Target Field on Monday to go for the clinch, and that is exactly what they did. With a rocky but successful start

by Luis Severino, the momentum was on the Yankees’ side the whole game. After four shutout innings for Severino, the win was capped off by home runs by Torres and Maybin late in the game. Closer Aroldis Chapman would then throw a 99 mile per hour fastball right past Nelson Cruz to lock him up and lock down the series for New York.

It was complete domination by Aaron Boone and his team, but it wasn’t really a surprise. This Yankees team is deep, filled with talent at all positions and really could make a push for a 28th championship. Yankee fans are all excited to see what happens with the opponent as the Yankees rest up for almost a week to prepare for another series showdown under the lights in October.

Page 24

SPORTS

October 9, 2019

TheFordhamRam

Fordham Football Falls to Yale in Coach Conlin’s Return, 48-24

By DYLAN BALSAMO

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

With a 2–3 record in the 2019 season, the Fordham Rams football team looked to be moving in the right direction as a squad and hoping to compete near the top of the Patriot League, perhaps cracking a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoff spot.

Then, on Saturday, they traveled to Yale University and were met quite unpleasantly by a Bulldogs team that walked off the gridiron 3–0. The final score at the Yale Bowl on Saturday was 48–24.

Rams head coach Joe Conlin was at one point an assistant coach at Yale, as he spent six years in New Haven before finding his way to the Bronx. If defeating a team by a wide margin is considered inhospitable, it was not a happy welcome home for Coach Conlin.

“I wish it had gone better,” Conlin said of the day’s affairs, a sentiment shared by his team. “Obviously it’s good to be back. I certainly have a lot of respect for the team that’s on the other side and I have a lot of great memories of this place.”

The spread entering the afternoon matchup was actually 18.5 points in favor of Yale, so the Bulldogs’ win over the Rams was not entirely shocking. What is eye-opening, however, is the 24-point margin by which Fordham fell on Saturday, a hard blow to a team that looked to be flying a bit higher after last week’s win over the University of Richmond.

Who could blame the Rams for wishing things had gone better?

Yale got things started quickly on Saturday, as in the first 10 and a half minutes of the game, it found itself with a 10–0 lead, thanks to a three-yard touchdown run from Reed Klubnik, Fordham senior

kicker Andrew Mevis’s blocked attempt at a field goal, and 33-yard field goal kick for the Bulldogs’ Sam Tuckerman. The Rams kept Yale on its toes, however, as on the next drive they needed only one play, a 70-yard pass from sophomore quarterback Tim DeMorat to sophomore wide receiver Fotis Kokosioulis, to make the game 10–7. But before the first quarter had come to an end, the Bulldogs had another touchdown, this one a three-yard run by Kurt Rawlings to keep the game 10 points in their favor after the opening 15 minutes.

After Fordham fumbled the ball at the end of the first quarter, Yale opened the second with possession and a quick touchdown, behind a three-play, 58yard, 1:15 drive that was punctuated by Rawlings’ 48-yard TD pass, bringing the score to 24–7.

The Rams were scrambling, but were able to keep the game within two scores after a field goal on their next drive. Mevis redeemed himself with a 37-yarder. After that, for the second time already in the game, came the third consecutive scoring drive between the clubs, as Rawlings continued with his day of successful long passes downfield with JP Shohfi’s grab in the end zone for 69 yards.

After the Rams recorded the first punt of the afternoon, it was the Bulldogs who scored again, only needing two plays to put Rawlings into the end zone after Shohfi’s 37-yard punt return.

That touchdown put the score at 38–10, and on the next play, DeMorat found one of his passes intercepted by Yale’s Kyle Ellis, who ran it back into Fordham’s end zone for 23 yards. That was the last play of the half. When the Rams entered the locker room at halftime, they were trailing 45–10.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

It was not a warm homecoming for head coach Joe Conlin, who spent six seasons as an assistant coach at Yale.

That start put the Rams deep into a hole that would be almost impossible for anyone to get out of. In fact, in the last 18 minutes of the first half, Yale outscored Fordham 35–3. That score alone would have been a blowout of a game.

“We got down by too much too early,” Conlin said of the first half.

The deficit was 35 points heading into the third quarter, one of their largest margins of the season.

Yale was the clear favorite to win, but few could expect a score like this one after half an hour of play.

The Rams were able to keep Yale from getting into the end zone for the remainder of the game and fought back offensively with a couple of touchdowns in the second half, but they were up against Bulldogs running backs Elliot McElwain and Griffin O’Connor handling the ball during the third and fourth quarters.

The Rams’ two touchdowns came in the fourth quarter, with freshman tight end Jeff Ciccio catching a 33-yard pass from De-

Morat and fellow freshman wideout Dequece Carter catching DeMorat’s 22-yard touchdown toss. But Yale’s 33-yard field goal from Tuckerman with under six minutes left in the game sealed the deal with an easy 24-point victory for the Bulldogs. The final score was 48–24. “I’m glad we fought back in the second half, but we need to do a better job at starting strong,” Conlin said of the third and fourth quarters.

Fordham was not without its positives on Saturday, though, specifically a couple of individual players. While DeMorat may have thrown an interception that resulted in one of Yale’s touchdowns, and on the ground he and the Fordham running backs only totaled 36 yards, DeMorat threw for 298 yards and three touchdowns, meaning he has thrown a touchdown in every game this season. And while Fordham defensively may have allowed Yale 495 total offensive yards in the game, sophomore linebacker and

three-time reigning Patriot League Defensive Player of the Week Ryan Greenhagen had himself another outstanding performance on Saturday, with 12 tackles and 10 solo tackles, including one for a loss. The two fourth quarter Fordham touchdowns were both scored by freshmen, a testament to the Rams’ depth as a squad.

None of that was able to stop a Bulldogs offense that was putting on a clinic at the Yale Bowl on Saturday afternoon, as they threw for 381 yards and recorded 21 first downs. “Our job now is to get ready for the Patriot League opener against Georgetown next week,” said Conlin.

That matchup will be a telling one for Fordham, who is now 2–4, as it will be its first conference matchup of the year in a Patriot League that is bound to be challenging to navigate.

The game against the Georgetown Hoyas will be in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 12 at 2 p.m.

Men’s Soccer Drops Third Straight Match With Loss to Seton Hall

By ANDREW POSADAS ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Fordham Men’s Soccer continued its four-game road trip this week, making the short trip to face Seton Hall University. This was the 31st meeting all-time between the Rams and Pirates, with the Pirates holding a 16–12–2 advantage in the series history.

Fordham looked to avoid losing its third straight match. Seton Hall came into Tuesday evening winners of three straight games, meaning a potential road win for the Rams would not come easy.

Making matters worse, the Rams were going to be without senior defender and captain Joergen Oland. Despite being the anchor on the defensive backline, Oland would also be missed on offense, where he leads the team in goals with four.

The first two real scoring chances of the match came from Fordham senior forward Johannes Pieles. In the seventh and 14th minute, respectively, Pieles ripped two shots on goal. The first shot went wide left of the

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

With Tuesday’s loss to Seton Hall, the Rams are now on a three-game losing streak and looking for answers.

goal, while his second scoring opportunity looked bound for the back of the net before Pirates goalkeeper Andreas Nota intervened with a great save to keep the game scoreless.

Fordham continued controlling possession with constant offensive attacks, keeping Seton Hall on its heels through the first 30 minutes of regulation. However, the Pirates would finally use the Rams’ aggressiveness on offense against them. In a three-minute span between the 37th and 40th

minute, Seton Hall used counter attacks to get three shots on goal.

Rams goalkeeper and graduate student Konstantin Weis was able to make saves on two of the three shots.

Unfortunately, Weis could not get a glove on a Pirates shot in the 39th minute and the home team struck first on the scoreboard to take the lead 1–0. Seton Hall took that lead into halftime despite being outplayed by Fordham for a majority of the first half. The Rams outshot Seton Hall 6–5 and

forced nine fouls from the Pirates.

Still, the Rams were trailing in the column that matters the most.

The second half started visibly slower in comparison with the first half. Neither team was able to get a shot off in the first 14 minutes. Then, in the 54th minute, junior midfielder Andron Kagramanyan gave a great pass to graduate student forward Filippo Ricupati, who finished past Nota for his third goal of the season.

Seton Hall responded swiftly and just four minutes later, the Pi-

rates found the back of the net to retake the lead 2–1.

The Rams were unable to create any more substantial scoring chances from that point on, unable to get another equalizer on the scoreboard. Seton Hall would add one more insurance goal in the 71st minute to put the game away for good. At the end of regulation, the final horn sounded and the Pirates were able to win their fourth straight game 3–1.

The loss drops Fordham to 3–7–1 on the season, and with Tuesday’s loss the Rams are now on a three-game losing streak.

The road ahead does not get any easier as three of the next four games for the Rams are on the road. Coach Aquista will have exactly one month to get his team ready for the upcoming final stretch of games, especially with the Atlantic 10 Championship being held at Jack Coffey Field this year.

Fordham Men’s Soccer will be back in action this Saturday as they head on the road to take on the University of Massachusetts.

Kickoff is scheduled for 1p.m.