The Fordham Ram Serving The Fordham University Community Since 1918 Volume 104, Issue 6
Women’s History Month Begins
Charles Feeney: Honorary Degree
By EMMA KIM
By SEBASTIAN DIAZ
Throughout the month of March, Fordham’s Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) is sponsoring different events to celebrate Women’s History Month. There will be an Art Fair Exhibition on Friday, March 25, in the McGinley Ballroom from 4 to 8 p.m., and on Sunday, March 27, there will be an excursion to the Lit. Bar, an independent woman-owned bookstore, which is also the only bookstore in the Bronx. On Monday, March 28, guest speaker Carrie Wen will speak from 4 to 5 p.m. on Zoom, and on Wednesday, March 31, there will be a trivia night at Lincoln Center. OMA is also sponsoring another off-campus event on Saturday, April 2 to the New-York Historical Society, where there will be a private, docent-led guided tour of “Women of the Collection.” In addition to OMA sponsored events, Fordham’s Career Center is also hosting a panel for Women’s History Month on Thursday, March 24 from 1 to 2 p.m. with an array of
On March 8, Fordham hosted a presentation in which Charles F. Feeney received an honorary doctorate of human letters from the university. Charles “Chuck” Feeney is a wealthy philanthropist who made it his mission to donate a majority of his wealth throughout his lifetime. Dennis Jacobs, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, served as the event’s master of ceremonies. Speaking about Feeney, Jacobs said, “Among those who excel in the accumulation of wealth, there are some who excel at giving it away … [Feeney] is a public-spirited man who devoted almost his entire fortune to philanthropic causes.” “Fordham applauds Chuck Feeney for living his belief to the fullest and we thank him for allowing us to publicly celebrate him,” said Jacobs. Father Thomas J. Regan, S.J., offered an invocation during the ceremony in which he connected Feeney’s accomplishments to the Jesuit ideals.
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
SEE HISTORY, PAGE 3
March 9, 2022
TheFordhamRam.com
Fordham’s Graduate School Workers Unionize
FEATURES EDITOR
SEE FEENY, PAGE 4
COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM
Fordham's graduate student workers form a union to advocate for better pay, working conditions and more.
By ISABEL DANZIS NEWS EDITOR
Fordham University’s graduate student workers joined together to create a labor union. Fordham Graduate Student Workers (FGSW) is a coalition of graduate students who work in the university and advocate for better wages, improved health insurance and “grievance structures that will protect [them] from abusive power relations.” The union has recently announced that they are joining the Communication Workers of
America (CWA) to organize their efforts. Graduate students do a variety of work within the university, teaching core classes, working as graduate assistants, tutoring students and providing administrative assistance. The unionization conversation started during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. According to Benjamin Van Dyne, a teaching fellow and fourth-year graduate student in the theology department, the pandemic brought new challenges to teaching. Van Dyne said that switching between
Zoom, hybrid and in-person classes, as well as teaching under the circumstances of COVID-19, brought much more work for graduate student educators. It was this that originally sparked Van Dyne’s involvement in the union. “For me, and I know for many of my colleagues, in some cases, have doubled the amount of work we have to do for that. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen that recognized by Fordham,” said Van Dyne. One of the FGSW’s goals is to get pay increases for these SEE UNION, PAGE 4
A Look at the Catholic Presence at Fordham By VALERIE GLASS
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM
The Loyola community shares their experiences with Tania Tetlow as she prepares to come to Fordham University.
Loyola Students Speak on Tania Tetlow By AVA ERICKSON EDITOR IN CHIEF
Fordham University President-Elect Tania Tetlow is currently the president of Loyola University New Orleans, a private college with 4,548 stu-
dents (3,223 undergraduates), ranked number 202 in national universities by U.S. News & World Report. Comparatively, Fordham has about 16,986 students (9,904 undergraduates) and is ranked 68. Both schools
are Jesuit, co-ed institutions in urban environments. Tetlow began her presidency in 2018 when she became the first woman and non-clergy president at Loyola. Members of the Loyola community spoke to the Ram about Tetlow’s imSEE LOYOLA, PAGE 5
The appointment of Presidentelect Tania Tetlow, J.D., signaled a change in Fordham tradition. Tetlow will be the first layperson president of Fordham. This break of tradition could be representative of the greater trend of younger people straying away from religion. Recent studies have shown that younger Americans are less likely than older adults to attend church, believe in God or say that religion is important to them. In addition, other measures of religious commitment find that younger people are less involved when compared to
their adult counterparts. This recent trend amongst young Americans seems to be consistent with changes in the university’s student population. Analysis of data pertaining to the religious identification of Fordham students over the last ten years reveals a steady decrease in the number of undergraduate students who identify as Catholic. According to statistics from the Office of Admissions, in 2012, 51.8% of students identified as Catholic while in 2021, 43.5% of students identified as Catholic. SEE CATHOLIC,
in this issue:
News
Page 6
Culture
Page 14
Fordham Hosts Sixth Annual Giving Day
Third-Generation Flourishes 100 Years Later
Opinion
Sports
Page 9
Page 18
Misusing DNA From Rape Student Athlete Column Kits is Privacy Violation