Volume 102, 4

The Fordham Ram Serving The Fordham University Community Since 1918 Volume 102, Issue 4

FordhamRam.com

February 12, 2020

Fordham Law Adds LL.M Program

University Revokes Priest’s Honors

By ERICA SCALISE

By HASNA CERAN

PROJECTS EDITOR EMERITA

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Fordham University School of Law, also known as Fordham Law, announced that it now offers a Master of Laws (LL.M) degree in Real Estate.

An LL.M degree is an optional secondary degree demonstrating proficiency in a specific area of law. This degree is often pursued by lawyers who have already earned their Juris Doctor ( J.D.) degree and passed the bar exam and are now seeking advanced knowledge in their area of practice. This program is currently the only one of its kind in New York City and one of few across the United States.

The ability to earn an LL.M in real estate law would allow students attending Fordham Law to focus a portion of their studies specifically on the subject of real estate law, which includes laws relating to issues of property ownership, estate planning,

SEE LAW, PAGE 3

COURTESY OF BRUCE GILBERT

Dr. Mahmood spoke about her experience with humanitarian work at this Ireland at Fordham event.

Jemilah Mahmood, Ph.D., Speaks on Trust and Humanitarianism

By KATIE SCHULTE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Feb. 6, 2020, Fordham hosted Jemilah Mahmood, Ph.D., for the third event in the Ireland at Fordham Humanitarian Lecture Series. In her speech, “The Trust Deficit in Humanitarian Action,” she drew on her

experience in medicine, humanitarian action and policy to suggest a solution to the problem currently being faced in the sector.

Beginning her career as a physician in Malaysia, Mahmood became increasingly involved in the international humanitarian sector after founding and leading her own non-profit, MERCY

Malaysia (Medical Relief Society Malaysia), from 1999-2009.

She began her mandate as under secretary general for partnerships at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in 2016.

The night began with opening SEE LECTURE, PAGE 3

Classics Program Put on Hiatus

By SARAH HUFFMAN NEWS EDITOR

COURTESY OF KATHERINE KUEMERLE

FTP’s third protest demanded free transit for all and full subway accessibility for people of all abilities, among other things .

Fordham Students Attend Third FTP Protest at Grand Central Station

By JOERGEN OSTENSEN PROJECTS EDITOR

Sage O’Dell, FCRH ’21, and Evan Leahy, FCRH ’21, said they were nervous the day before taking to the streets for the FTP movement’s third action (FTP3). They

knew they risked arrest due to the likelihood of heightened police presence.

“We were gonna go regardless,” said O’Dell, who had attended both previous FTP actions, along with Leahy.

O’Dell and Leahy said 15 Ford-

ham students attended FTP3 with them. Two were arrested and released later that night.

The action, organized primarily by Decolonize This Place (DTP), that describes itself on Twitter as an “actionoriented movement on Indigenous SEE FTP, PAGE 6

Fordham’s classics graduate program is currently on a two-year graduate admissions hiatus.

According to Melissa Labonte, Ph.D., interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), the hiatus was announced to graduate students and faculty in Nov. 2019.

Labonte said the University took this step at the recommendation of interim chair of classics, Jacqueline Reich, Ph.D., after consultation with the dean of the faculty and associate vice president of arts and sciences Eva Badowska and the Office of the Provost.

“This decision was informed by thorough, careful analysis and extensive deliberation,” Labonte said. “Since the decision was implemented in November, the interim chair, in collaboration with the department and GSAS, has taken steps to support SEE CLASSICS, PAGE 6

Rev. Nicholas J. Langenfeld, former social welfare professor in the Graduate School of Social Services, prior recipient of the President’s Medal and the eponymous figure of the Rev. Dr. Nicholas J. Langenfeld Chair in Social Research at the university’s Graduate School of Social Sciences, has a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against him listed by the Diocese of Green Bay. The university posthumously revoked Langenfeld’s honors in 2019 following its knowledge of the allegation. The Langenfeld Chair was renamed the Sister Thea Bowman Chair, according to Bob Howe, director of communications for the university.

The Fordham community was not notified of these changes.

According to Howe, there is no central list of revoked honors.

The university publicly rescinded Bill Cosby’s honorary degree in 2015 in light of sexual misconduct allegations against him and Charlie Rose’s honorary degree in 2017 following sexual assault allegations brought against him. In the case of Langenfeld, Howe said the university did not make a formal statement because he was long deceased when the university revoked the honors.

Langenfeld is not on Fordham News’ list of priests connected to the university with credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Howe said the lack of an update was an oversight.

According to Howe, Fordham’s list comprises the names of priests from all of the Jesuit provinces. Over the years, priests from several orders have circulated through the university.

Since the list’s release, The Fordham Ram has tracked priests SEE PRIESTS, PAGE 5

in this issue

Opinion

Page 7 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ... Award Shows Were Relevant

Sports

Page 24

Women's Basketball Takes Down UMass

Culture

Page 12

No Need to Stress Over Valentine’s Day

NEWS

Page 2

PUBLIC SAFETY BRIEFS Feb. 5 Walsh Hall 6:05 p.m.

A Fordham student reported that an unknown person in Finlay Hall was shining a green laser light into the student’s room in Walsh Hall. Public Safety identified the student who was pointing the laser. The incident was referred to the dean of students.

Feb. 8 Dealy Hall 3:40 a.m.

Public Safety discovered a student and their guest inside of Dealy Hall 105. The building was locked at the time. The student said they entered through an unlocked window. They were escorted out without incident. The matter was referred to the dean of students.

Feb. 9 Alumni Court South 4:35 a.m.

A fire alarm was activated in Alumni Court South, requiring a FDNY response. It was discovered that a student caused a smoke condition using a microwave. The building was evacuated, and the room was ventilated.

Students were allowed to return after the fire department deemed it safe.

Feb. 10 Dollar Tree 12:55 p.m.

A student reported they received a phone call where someone stated that the student’s social security number had been compromised and asked the student to verify the number. The student gave their last four digits and date of birth. Remaining on the line, the caller requested the student go to the Dollar Tree store on Third Avenue and buy gift cards in the amount of $2,000 to rectify the situation.

They were not able to obtain the gift cards.

Feb. 10 Fordham Road and 3rd Avenue.

4:15 p.m.

A student said she boarded the Bx12 bus at Fordham Road and Third Avenue. She said she felt a bump near her waist as the bus was very crowded. As she was on the bus she noticed that her wallet and keys were missing. The NYPD is investigating.

— Compiled by Joergen Ostensen

February 12, 2020

Historic Mott Haven Neighborhood Turns 50 Exhibit Showcases Change Over Time

BY GRACIE DAVIS STAFF WRITER

Mott Haven, a historic district in the South Bronx centered on Alexander Avenue, was the first location in the Bronx to be given landmark designation in 1969 by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Committee. Thus, 2019 marked its recent 50th anniversary. Bertine Block, the East Historic District of Mott Haven, would be separately landmarked in 1994.

According to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Society, a landmark must be “a building, property, or object that has been so designated because it has a special character or special historical or aesthetic interest or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the city, state, or nation.”

A historic district is “a group of buildings, properties or sites by one of several entities on different levels that are recognized as historically or architecturally significant,” said the NYC Landmarks Preservation Society.

The Bronx County Historical Society celebrated the historic 50th anniversary with an exhibit detailing what the neighborhood has been and what it has come to be. The exhibit is primarily photograph-based and focuses on the unique layout of the neighborhood as well as the distinct architecture.

The library, police station, churches — Tercera Iglesia Bautista (Third Baptist Church) and St. Jerome’s Roman Catholic Church — and town houses are specifically significant in the culture of the district. The historic district contains some of the very first town houses erected in the Bronx, which were built in the 1860s, according to official Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan.

“This is the first evidence there is of the urbanization of the Bronx,” he said. During this time — the late 19th century — Mott Haven predominantly housed Irish doctors and physicians,” Ultan said. Alexander Avenue was called, in slang, the ‘Irish 5th Avenue. It was not until later in the 20th century that Mott Haven became mainly black and Hispanic, according to Ultan.

The exhibit follows advancing technologies as they were brought to the Bronx and how

GRACIE DAVIS/ THE FORDHAM RAM

The exhibit, pictured above, is mainly made up of photographs detailing the architecture and layout of Mott Haven.

they were used to connect Mott Haven to the broadening city that surrounds it. It places an emphasis on the influence of mass transportation and the growth of the Bronx in the 20th century.

“Mott Haven was the first area of the Bronx to be urbanized, and it was one of the major reasons why the western half of the Bronx was next to New York City as early as 1874,” said Ultan. “You see, the Bronx was part of New York City before Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island were.”

The exhibit clearly contrasts the Bronx from other boroughs.

In the early 1900s, the Bronx acted as a sort of refuge from the crowded streets of Manhattan.

“It was an area where people in the smoky city, from all the industry, escaped … to the suburban villages that were established — and Mott Haven was one of them,” said Ultan.

The exhibit also largely focuses on a family who lived in Mott Haven at 284 Alexander Avenuefrom 1901 until the 1970s. San-

dra Eaton, the granddaughter of Dr. Ernst Wilkens, who first purchased the home and started a family in Mott Haven, donated photographs and documents that chronicled their time in the district.

Their home was one of the earliest town houses ever constructed in the Bronx, and Wilkens bought it for $6,350 at the time. It was used as both the Wilkens’ house and Dr. Wilkens’ office until his death, when it was passed on to his daughter Margaret. Both Dr. Wilkens and Margaret ardently photographed their own home life as well as life in their Mott Haven community.

“We want to make sure people understand where we were in the past and where we’re going to next,” said Clarence Addo-Yobo, senior interpreter at the Bronx Historical Society.

“With every younger generation, from what I’ve seen, we always want some sort of progression,” he said. “We want advanced technology, automated

systems — and in order to do that, we have to get rid of the old, and replace it with the new … but we need to still somehow understand where we came from.

That’s why [the Bronx County Historical Society] is here,” he said.

Ultan reminded visitors that, while the exhibit covers an extensive history of Mott Haven, the actual landmark designation occurred only 50 years ago.

“It’s an interesting exhibit that most people, I think, would enjoy seeing, for the importance of Mott Haven and the difference between Mott Haven roughly 100 years ago and Mott Haven today,” Ultan said. Mirroring Clarence’s outlook toward the future of Mott Haven as it is connected to the past, Ultan concluded by saying time marches on.

To learn more about the Mott Haven exhibit at the Bronx Historical Society, visit http:// bronxhistoricalsociety.org/exhibits.

This Week at Fordham

Thursday Feb. 13

Thursday Feb. 13

Thursday Feb. 13

Saturday Feb. 15

Wednesday Feb. 19

Ramblergram Tabling

CAB’s Valentines Giveaway

Win a Date!

Blind Date Competition Keating First Auditorium 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Autism Speaks Valentine’s Bingo

Campbell Multipurpose Room 4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

RHA February Quizzo

Dagger John’s 9:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.

The Ramblers will be tabling in McGinley lobby to sell their annual Valentine’s Day Ramblergrams. Any student or faculty member at Fordham University can purchase a singing Ramblergram for someone on campus.

The Campus Activities General Board will be giving away Valentine’s-themed freshly made waffles and build-your-own stuffed animal kits in order to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The giveaways will be in McGinley lobby.

The Campus Activities Board Speaker Series will be hosting a blind date competition in Keating First. One student will be asking questions in order to find out if they are compatible with volunteer contestants without seeing them.

Autism Speaks U will be hosting a Valentine’s Bingo to raise autism awareness and give students a chance to interact with individuals on the spectrum. Each participant will receive two bingo cards. Food will be served.

The Residence Halls Association will be hosting their monthly trivia night, or Quizzo. Students will be answering questions about random trivia and competing against each other for the opportunity to win various prizes.

McGinley Lobby All Day

McGinley Lobby 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

NEWS

February 12, 2020

Page 3

Fordham Law Offers Only LL.M in Real Estate in NYC FROM LAW, PAGE 1

land use laws and zoning, to name a few. According to Fordham University’s website, the degree is “intended for attorneys looking to deepen their understanding of real estate law or to open up new career opportunities in real estate," “The new LL.M in Real Estate is an opportunity for Fordham Law to highlight its depth and breadth in real estate offerings while taking advantage of related programming throughout the University,” said Toni Jaeger-Fine, assistant dean of international and non-J.D. programs at Fordham Law, when asked about the significance of this new program for Fordham Law. This sentiment was echoed by professor Nestor M. Davidson, Albert A. Walsh chair in real estate, land use and property law and faculty director of the Fordham Urban Law Center.

“Students in our program will have access to our law school’s exceptional faculty and many real estate offerings and will be just a subway ride away from the world’s leading developers and law firms,” said Davidson. “It’s an exceptional opportunity for lawyers seeking to build their real estate practice.”

However, the availability of this program is not related only to Fordham Law’s growth, but also to the real estate market in New York City. As one of the most dynamic real estate markets in the country, the New York City real

COURTESY OF RAM ARCHIVES

Fordham University's School of Law now offers the only Master of Laws degree in Real Estate in New York City. It is one of a few programs across the United States.

estate market is changing every day, and Fordham Law’s new offering comes just in time, to accomodate the growing field.

“This program also serves an

important need — ours is the only such degree in the country’s largest real estate market. We are excited about the opportunity to provide lawyers the chance to

develop and enhance their knowledge in this field, so crucial to the local, national, and global economies,” said Jaeger-Fine.

Fordham Law’s new program

offering for real estate law establishes its ability to work with the city and react to the needs of its students and law practices in New York City in general.

Mahmood Discusses Trust Among Host Communities FROM LECTURE, PAGE 1

remarks from Brendan Cahill, executive director of Fordham’s Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA), and Martin Gallagher, humanitarian affairs counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Ireland to the United Nations.

Cahill said the partnership exemplifies the “bridge between academia and the humanitarian sector” that the IIHA was created for. The series was launched as the Permanent Mission of Ireland is running for a seat on the UN Security Council and hoping to demonstrate their priorities in reshaping humanitarianism, along with other important topics such as climate change, in the series.

“Ireland’s role is meaningful here — it has been a leader in education for hundreds of years and has been a backbone of UN peacekeeping,” said Cahill. “It brings its own history of hunger and migration in looking at the issues that confront the international community today.”

Gallagher provided background for the lecture, stating that there are currently 170 million people in need of assistance. He noted that access to these communities, particularly in places of conflict, is increasingly limited and, if granted, dangerous.

He explained that as humanitarian crises become more complex, it is essential that empowering local organizations be at the heart of the solution.

After her introduction, Mahmood began with a call to action to help solve one of the biggest threats currently facing humanitarian action. Mahmood said she finds that the best solution to the problem she

KATIE SCHULTE/ FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

Brendan Cahill and Martin Gallagher spoke about Ireland's role in humanitarian work before Mahmood's lecture.

faces concerning lack of trust is localization. Before delving into this idea, she underlined the problem. “(Our reality is built upon) common imagined reality that allows us to believe in invisible constructs,” she said.

She marked the Arab Spring as a turning point in trusting these shared stories.

“Public belief in many core aspects of the system is disappearing around the world,” she said. “We see unprecedented doubt in government, in multilateral institutions, in the media, in globalization and trade and even in science.”

For humanitarians, trust is essential between agencies and the governments whose countries they work in. The donors and, more important-

ly, the host communities are most in need of aid, said Mahmood. Of the many relationships that require trust, she said the most important is the relationship with communities.

Distrust and fear make containing an epidemic even more difficult, said Mahmood. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Red Cross organized community engagement and accountability programs to address such fears.

“Yes, we listened, but more importantly, we acted,” said Mahmood.

“How can we expect the people we serve to trust us if we are not willing to trust them?”

She explained how listening is the foundation of action. Upon hearing that a majority of Myanmar refugees in Bangladesh were selling their aid,

many organizations, including the IFRC, implemented cash programs.

It provided independence to choose one’s own aid, which has proven much more effective, she said.

Organizations have also empowered communities to have a say in plans, as one indigenous community in Prince Albert Canada called for during a disaster evacuation disagreement with the government.

“Copying and pasting from one plan to another without taking the time up front to engage, like many of our partners, we are trying hard to break out of this pattern,” said Mahmood.

In regard to finances, more organizations are moving to a direct funding relationship with local groups, such as The Act Alliance. Others, like

Mercy Corps in Syria, are also providing remote training and support for local partners to serve at capacity, she said.

Despite such progress, Mahmood also acknowledged that these programs are still not perfect, mostly because they are under-supported.

A major issue is that most local actors feel that their voices are muted by international actors.

In the face of such adversity, she shared her own story of going local when she founded her own NGO, MERCY Malaysia.

“As an organization born in a multiracial and multi-ethnic country that I come from, our humility, our deep knowledge of culture, our innate ability to easily build relationships with diverse communities, our precious asset and natural ability to listen, understand and learn from the people we aim to support were crucial building blocks to enable us to deliver the best possible assistance for people,” she said.

Mahmood ended her speech with a call for change for the current and future leaders in the field and a powerful reference.

Ritamarie Pepe, FCLC ’22, said she appreciated her call for “trust in order to refocus humanitarian work” for students and actors alike because of how seamlessly Mahmood connected her experience over the years to her policy.

In a Q&A following her lecture, Dr. Mahmood reinforced her message. “(Going local allows communities) to be their own heroes and international support strengthens and enhances rather than replaces and undermines,” she said.

NEWS

Page 4

February 12, 2020

Research Spotlight

USG Column

Senior Researches Neural Stem Cells in Mice Focuses on Growth of Adult Born Neurons

By KRISTEN McNERNEY

By ALEX PARKER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The human brain is still a mystery in many ways. Elizabeth Wood, FCRH ’20, is up to the challenge of solving it. Her work in the lab run by Tiago Goncalves, Ph.D., at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine focuses primarily on the growth and function of adult born neurons.

These brain cells only appear in specific regions of the brain like the hippocampus. Their specific function is to discriminate between memories of different events.

“If you’re here in the library right now and you come back and do the same thing tomorrow, these cells help to distinguish between those two memories,” said Wood.

Wood has worked as an assistant in the lab since the summer after her sophomore year. She said the experience prepared her to take the reins on her own project at the beginning of this school year.

“When I first started in the lab, it took me a few weeks just to understand what everyone in the lab was saying,” she said.

“I’m glad I was able to learn a lot about what they do there before starting my project.”

Her project, titled “Elucidating the Role of Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy on Adult Neurogenesis in the Dentate Gyrus of Mice,” builds on other work done in the lab. For the project she used mice to observe how Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy (CMA), a type of protein degradation, affects the growth of new neurons.

“Previous background research showed that ChaperoneMediated Autophagy could have an effect on adult born neurons, but nobody had looked directly into it,” Wood said.

Wood worked with two groups

Photo of the Week:

IT Presents to USG Senate

COURTESY OF ELIZABETH WOOD

Elizabeth Wood, FCRH ‘20, is working on a project about neural development and protein degradation in mice.

of mice. One group was normal, while the other was genetically modified so that CMA could not occur. She injected them with a protein that caused the adult born neurons to appear green.

After killing the mice 21 days later she was able to observe the ways the adult neurons developed in each group.

While Wood already wrote about her findings for her senior thesis last semester, the project is still ongoing. She said being able to take the project even further has been a great experience.

“It’s exciting to keep working on it,” she said. “I was so worked up about getting where I needed to complete my thesis. But then I reached a point where I had results that I could look at and then say, ‘OK now what should

we determine?’”

So far in her work Wood has determined that mice without CMA had a decrease in neural stem cells. Wood’s next step in her research includes comparing the effects of CMA in older and younger mice.

Adult Neurogenesis plays a key role in a lot of different functions, and Wood says this type of research can have many broader implications.

“For my project specifically, a lot of diseases of memory and neurodegeneration are caused by problems with protein degradation,” said Wood. “Everyone’s memory fades as they get older, and maybe the decline in neurogenesis and Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy has something to do with that.”

Looking beyond her research, Wood has her sights set on attending a neuroscience Ph.D. program next year. She said the project helped prepare for her next steps.

“I think in the future I’d like to steer towards neurodegeneration and diseases that affect memory and what goes wrong in those disease states,” she said.

Wood said she ultimately learned about a lot more than neurons while developing her project.

“I really learned how to piece everything together,” she said.

“When you write a paper for a publication people describe it as you’re still telling a story. What does your data say? It was my first time doing that instead of just bench work.”

HASNA CERAN/THE FORDHAM RAM

Fordham University hosts a large number of animal and plant species on its campus. This red-tailed hawk perches upon a tree on Martyrs’ Lawn and surveys the campus among other wildlife such as squirrels and blue jays.

This past Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, the United Student Government (USG) talked about Information Technology, sustainable fashion and upcoming campus activities.

Judy Rothschild, assistant director of Student Technology Services, made her semester visit to the Senate. Rothschild said that Information Technology (IT) is in the process of hosting undergraduate technology workshops once a month at each campus. This month’s workshop focuses on intermediate excel, she said, and will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 12 in Dealy 105.

Senators voiced concerns about losing their OneDrive accounts after graduation. Rothschild said the university’s contract with Google made it impossible for alumni to infinitely keep their OneDrives, but they will be available to students for at least one semester after graduation.

Senators also expressed concerns about IT access for students, primarily freshmen who might not know how to use the services available.

Rothschild clarified that information is under the “Tech Help” tab on the homepage of MyFordham, and that by clicking “Have a Problem,” students are directed to a page where they can fill out a request for help. She also said IT takes walk-in appointments in McGinley 229.

Vice President of Sustainability, Margaret Tattersfield, FCRH ’22, shared a statement from the Sustainability Committee regarding fast fashion. “[Fast fashion is] an approach to the design, creation and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasize making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers,” read the statement.

Tattersfield said that fast fashion contributes to large amounts of textile waste and clothing that is sent to landfills, as well as inequitable trends in production, such as textile workers earning roughly three dollars a day.

The statement suggests the rejection of brands such as Forever 21 and Victoria’s Secret, and encourages shopping sustainable brands such as Alternative Apparel, Pact and Patagonia.

Fordham Flea has also been successful, said Tattersfield and Jonathon Eng, FCRH ’23. The group is responsible for selling clothes on campus and for advertising student handme-downs on social media for other students to buy for modest prices. A clothing collection will be held on Feb. 19.

The USG Senate elected Vice President of Health and Security, Emma Budd, FCRH ’20, to the position of election commissioner. The role includes ensuring the fairness of USG elections and making sure the election code is followed.

Campus Activities Board is hosting a variety of activities this week for Valentine’s Day, said delegate Isabella Albani, GSB ’20. Students can write secret valentines to their friends in McGinley on Wednesday Feb. 12 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The Senate selected Asian Cultural Exchange as Club of the Month, and Alex Chavez, GSB ’23, was awarded Senator of the Month.

NEWS

February 12, 2020

Page 5

Fordham Rescinds Honors After Credible Abuse Allegations FROM PRIESTS, PAGE 1

with credible allegations connected to the university, Fordham Preparatory School and MurrayWeigel Hall, the Jesuit infirmary and retirement home on the university’s campus. The university has not added those names to its list and has not publically updated the list since it was first published on Jan. 15, 2019.

According to Howe, the university received notice of the Langenfeld allegation after the list was posted.

He referred to the online list as the university’s reporting mechanism.

“We will be updating the list on the website when we learn of new cases, including Father Langenfeld’s,” he said.

While at Fordham, Langenfeld taught research methodology and was the school’s research director from 1934 to 1967. A $1 million gift from the Langenfeld family established the professorship in his name, according to The New York Times.

According to the Diocese of Green Bay, the approximate dates of abuse occurred in the 1940s.

Justine Lodl, communications director for the Diocese of Green Bay, said though the allegation dates back this far, it was made many decades later.

Langenfeld died at MurrayWeigel on Aug. 28, 1994, according to his obituary in The New York Times.

He is not the only priest con-

nected to the university with credible allegation(s) of sexual abuse against him who returned to Fordham to live at MurrayWeigel. The Ram previously reported on Rev. Edward Zogby, S.J., the associate vice president for Lincoln Center during the 1980’s who was accused of sexual misconduct in an article from The New Yorker. Zogby was a resident at Murray-Weigel and died there in 2011. Zogby is not included on Fordham News’ list of priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.

The Ram also reported on Rev. Roy Drake, S.J., a science teacher at Fordham Prep until 1968, two years before the university and Fordham Prep became independent of one another in 1970.

Drake was accused of sexual abuse and went on to live at Murray-Weigel from 1994 to 2006.

Most recently, Rev. William J. O’Malley, former adjunct professor in the School of Professional and Continuing Studies and theology professor at Fordham Prep, was removed from Murray-Weigel per a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. O’Malley is also absent from Fordham’s list of priests.

The university’s message has remained consistent regarding Murray-Weigel — it does not have control over the infirmary and does not have a regular flow of information concerning its

THE RAM ARCHIVES

Rev. Nicholas J. Langefeld taught research methodology at Fordham. He passed away at Murray-Weigel in 1994.

tenants. The Northeast Province and the university have an agreement that sees to the immediate removal of residents against whom credible allegations are made, according to Howe and Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university.

The process of placement into Murray-Weigel is unclear. According to Lodl, it was Langenfeld who chose to live out his life on Fordham’s campus when he retired to Murray-Weigel.

According to Michael Gabriele, communications director for the Northeast Province, the Provincial makes the ultimate decision as to where a Jesuit resides based on the availability of space and the health of the Jesuit.

With the addition of Langen-

feld, the Ram has tracked 12 priests who have lived at MurrayWeigel with credible accusations of sexual misconduct of a minor brought against them.

Langenfeld is the only priest whose residency dates back to the 1990s. According to Gabriele, Murray-Weigel, which once served as a home for Jesuit-scholastics in training, transitioned to the Jesuit health center in the early ’80s.

This reporting comes amid the release of Pro Publica’s interactive database of accused priests.

An analysis by the Associated Press found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served.

The university did not respond to questions regarding updates on its Independent Advisory Committee, a group comprised of lay trustees assigned to review allegations of sexual misconduct against Jesuits.

According to Howe, the university condemns Langenfeld’s actions, regardless of where or how long ago they took place.

“Fordham is committed to ensuring that the University offers no haven, nor honors, to perpetrators of sexual abuse, and is likewise committed to reporting any future cases of abuse to law enforcement and Church authorities,” Howe said. “As an institution and a community, we pray for the healing of all victims of sexual abuse.”

Fordham Senior Develops Social Visual Search App

By MAGGIE ROTHFUS COPY CHIEF EMERITA

A person walks into a Bed Bath and Beyond and finds a decent hand towel, but it’s missing its price tag. They pull out their phone, snap a picture and, instantly, they know that the towel costs $10.

This is one of the many purposes Josh Choi, FCLC ’20, envisioned for his app Nanolens, a “visual search app” that can detect faces-including those of celebrities-text, locations and more.

Choi and his team aimed to differentiate Nanolens from its other image search engine competitors by implementing a “group” or social aspect.

“When we think of imagesearch, we tend to think of inputting a keyword or image and getting similar images as a result,” he said. “We don’t do that. …

What makes us truly unique is that we’re positioned as a social product. You can’t find groups related to your photos and videos on GoogleLens. You can on ‘Capture’ but we launched first, and they copied us a whole lot so we had to boot them off of our app back in December. Essentially, we make image-recognition social.”

Currently, the app is still in a young development stage. Having first launched in August 2019, Nanolens runs on an invite-only system, for which Choi has a code specifically written for Fordham students: “FRDHAM.” It is because Nanolens is so fresh that Choi has taken precautions to prevent it from upscaling prematurely. After Product Hunt

had featured the app, AMC Networks reached out to Choi, offering him and Nanolens more publicity, but he declined.

“We didn’t think the product was ready for scale,” he stated. “It’s like pouring copious amounts of water into a leaky bucket — no retention.”

While, according to Choi, “no one really helped with Nanolens’ app development,” he does have assistance in the form of marketing interns, like Mavi Bengzon, GSB ’20. For her, working on Nanolens has helped her pursue her own career goals.

“Working for a startup company, it is definitely challenging to solve problems that require a large amount of resources, but it’s very enjoyable at the same time,” she said. “Working here has changed and developed my problem solving skills.”

She added: “I believe that the company could get more users, especially since the app continues to update and grow. I encourage people to start downloading the app and being part of a new community!”

Prior to Nanolens, Choi had developed three other apps and started to learn app design during his senior year of high school when he built his first website.

These three apps and Nanolens have one similar tenet: the need for a social aspect and community.

First, he made an app called Redplanet, “a social media app that organized your newsfeeds between friends and publishers.”

A photo album-sharing app called Capsule was next, and Bucket, an app that would sync a

user and their friends’ events, followed.

Choi’s vision for making social media apps is popular — with his first app having attracted almost 10,000 users.

Nanolens has potential for its own popularity through its community-based structure.

“The ability to share knowledge and similar interest with strangers through posts and comments on the nanopages is the best part of Nanolens,” said Bengzon.

Choi stated that by the time he developed Nanolens, it only took him one month to do so.

Despite this, he commented on how it is harder to develop social apps.

“If there’s anything in common (between the apps), it’s that they’re all social products.

I don’t know why I keep coming back to social products. Perhaps I don’t have enough knowledge to find an opportunity in the B2B space, but I do know that social products are hard to build.”

Choi will be completing his degree in computer science this spring, and he intends to continue the development of Nanolens. However, when asked about the app’s future, he did not have a set timeline for it.

“I’m not sure. But we did find an incentive model that we’re testing this month that I also discovered could be a great business model. But I do know that the world is changing rapidly, and I’m convinced that the next step in computing is going to be driven by voice or camera

COURTESY OF JOSH CHOI

Nanolens is an image search engine app created by Josh Choi, FCLC ’20.

interfaces, and I want to contribute to the latter.”

Choi, who has also worked at NBC as an analytics engineer, mainly wants to continue app development whether it is through Nanolens or not.

“I’m not exactly sure how things

are going to end up from here on out,” Choi stated. “But I do know that I want to keep making a difference and work on Nanolens whether it’s a visual search app or something else, I’m sure opportunities are everywhere if you look in the right places.”

NEWS

Page 6

February 12, 2020

FTP Protestors Demand Equal Access to Subway FROM FTP, PAGE 1

struggle, Black liberation, Free Palestine, workers, de-gentrification and dismantling patriarchy,” began as 1,500 people gathered for an unsanctioned protest in Grand Central Station.

FTP stands for several things, according to the Operations Manual DTP distributed prior to the action, including Feed the People, F--- the Pipelines, Fight the Power, Free the Prisoners, but central to its meaning is F--the Police.

Protestors came with four demands, according to DTP: free transit for all, intervening on illegal venders and performers, full accessibility to the subway for people of all abilities and removal of all cops from the MTA. Shellyne Rodriguez, an organizer with Take Back the Bronx said 47 people were arrested over the course of FTP3, on WBAI's "It's a Good Day" morning radio show.

Where the protestors gathered, Leahy and O'Dell said it felt like there were thousands of cops lining every balcony, every staircase, blocking every entrance. Many were armed and some carried assault rifles.

Leahy and O'Dell said in Grand Central, the organizers used call and response to read a statement acknowledging the land they were standing on was stolen from the Lenape People.

The series of FTP protests came after the city’s decision

to spend $250 million on adding 500 more cops to the MTA, which according to the Wall Street Journal, is in an effort to crack down on fare evasion.

The MTA is massively indebted, with 17% of its budget going to paying back its debts, according to it’s website.

The debt is owned by municipal bonds, according to Bloomberg, which DTP said are controlled by investors based on Wall Street.

“In the public mind, the subway system is failing, but it’s working very well for investors, who escape the blame and make out like bandits because they profit from distress,” DTP’s operations manual reads.

Soon after gathering in Grand Central, the organizers announced the action would move to the subways, with a meeting place in Brooklyn.

Leahy said he was happy to participate, following the lead of the organizers, many of whom were people of color and members of marginalized communities.

For Leahy, O’Dell and their friends who accompanied them from Rose Hill, support meant a willingness to take direct action in support of DTP’s demands by evading the fare.

The students entered a Times Square station where they saw five cops against the wall and ten in the center of the station. All of them evaded the fare and then headed straight for the trains.

“A lot of people have to do it to live, they have to decide between paying the fare and eating that night,” he said. “That’s kind of foreign for a lot of us, but it’s true.”

Beginning in Grand Central and continuing in Brooklyn, where the activists marched along streets, the police arrested people, some who were not part of the protest, Leahy said.

Echoing previous comments

by President Donald Trump, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, the sergeants union, said in a tweet that the antifascist protestors should be considered domestic terrorists.

The Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, another police union, tweeted a video produced by DTP implying the action was evidence of lawlessness returning to the city.

“Our members have spent their careers — and in some cases given their lives — to bring public safety back to NYC,” the tweet said. “We can't go backwards.”

O’Dell said the police were aggressive at the successive FTP actions. He said officers at FTP3 had their batons drawn the whole time, looking for a fight.

FTP2 cops swarmed in to break up protestors who were blocking a bridge crossing the Bronx River, O'Dell said.

“That is when I saw police brutality for the first time,” he

said. “Police picking people up and like slamming them on this pavement and like putting their feet on people’s heads and really just beating people.”

He said he felt powerless. He said he was standing on the side watching, where all he could do was yell ‘shame’ along with the other protestors. He said he recognized how violence against dissent is inherently part of policing.

“They’re just doing their jobs,” he said. “Shame is not programmed into their vocabulary when they’re doing those sorts of things to people.”

At FTP3, O’Dell said he saw the police as instigators of violence rather than protestors, who he said refrained from destructive activity directed at people or property that did not belong to the city.

“People wrote like F--- NYPD down the side of cop cars and stuff like that and they may not like that,” he said.

Many of the protestors graffitied the walls of subways. At Nostrand Avenue, a stop on the blue line where many of the activists disembarked to join the marches in Brooklyn, someone wrote ‘Peoples Hero Ramsey Orta,’ according to the Support Ramsey Orta Facebook Page.

As The Ram reported last year, Ramsey Orta, who filmed the death of his friend Eric Garner at the hands of then NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, has spent the last three years in prison and is

considered a political prisoner of the NYPD by his supporters.

After the marches died down in Brooklyn, Leahy and O'Dell said a crowd gathered outside One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan to wait for those who had been arrested to be released.

O’Dell said they waited about seven hours, until 3:30 am, until both of the Fordham students who were arrested had been released. He said this was his favorite part of FTP3, as the activists shared food and their thoughts about the action.

“We’re here in solidarity with each other for our comrades who have been jailed,” he said.

“I just found it very beautiful.”

As a white, male Fordham student, O’Dell said he feels the responsibility to use his privilege to support the efforts of marginalized communities, but thinks the Fordham community can do more.

“The same privilege that we feel the need to weaponize is the reason Fordham’s community fails often at becoming involved in activism and organizing itself,” he said.

O’Dell and Leahy said they were encouraged by the number of Fordham students who participated. They hope to found one by next semester to create an outlet for students who share their beliefs.

The NYPD did not respond to several requests for comment.

Classics Graduate Program Learns of Admissions Hiatus Students and Faculty Express Desire to Improve Program FROM CLASSICS, PAGE 1

classics graduate students to the fullest and most effective extent possible.”

Olivia Baquerizo, a first-year Ph.D. student at Lincoln Center, said she found out about the hiatus on Friday, Nov. 15, at 9 a.m. when Labonte sent out a memorandum informing the students that this hiatus would be in effect for the next two years.

She said Labonte and Reich met with the classics faculty at Rose Hill in the morning and with the graduate students later that day to explain what was happening and why.

Baquerizo said the decision was made without consultation with the classics faculty, so none of the students or faculty expected the announcement. She said both meetings that day were unsatisfactory.

“We have been told that the hiatus is necessary to fix perceived problems in our department, but the administration has failed to satisfactorily explain how suspending admissions will help to fix those problems,” said Bertram Schewel, GSAS ’21.

Baquerizo said the current graduate students have been assured that this hiatus will not affect their progress in completing their degrees nor their funding packages.

Fordham’s classics department is part of the Classics Consortium, an agreement whereby

students from NYU, CUNY and Fordham can take courses at any of these institutions as if they were taking the class at their home institution.

Labonte said Fordham’s place within the Classics Consortium will continue to operate as it has over the past few years in recognition of the benefits the arrangement provides to our faculty and students, as well as other Consortium members.

New initiatives are being explored and developed to promote steady student progress toward degree completion and to enhance professional development, according to Labonte.

“It should be emphasized that during the hiatus period, all department faculty are being encouraged to consider how to meet the challenges of the new disciplinary and graduate education landscape in classics,” Labonte said. “We are committed to working with them as they begin to imagine and chart a sustainable future pathway for the teaching of classics at Fordham.”

Matthew McGowan, Ph.D., associate professor of Classics, said he wants to keep the conversation going.

“I understand the Administration's position — maintaining academic excellence takes constant care — but Fordham is an excellent place for Classics right now, and there’s so much potential here,” he said. “I'd love to see

COURTESY OF RAM ARCHIVES

Fordham has a classics department at both campuses. Classics is located in Faculty Memorial Hall (FMH) at Rose Hill.

us work together — students, faculty, administrators, alumni — to capitalize on the University's unique strengths and reinvigorate our program at every level: BA, MA and Ph.D.” Baquerizo said she has a very high opinion of this classics graduate program.

“The academics offered through Fordham are strong, and the collaboration between our department and medieval studies opens up many opportunities for interdisciplinary work,” she said. “There is great camaraderie among the graduate cohort, the knowledge that our faculty, especially Dr. Mat-

thew McGowan, look out for us, and the Classics Consortium lets us interact with faculty and graduate students from across the city.”

Schewel said the classics graduate program has placed its most recent graduates in gainful employment.

“We enjoy the respect of the field as a whole, made evident by the glowing letter sent by the Societal for Classical Studies in support of our program,” he said.

Bryan Whitchurch, GSAS ’19, graduated from the classics program last spring and said he had the opportunity to read as much Greek and Latin as he could. He

said he developed his skills at understanding texts while at Fordham. He said he was especially appreciative of the Jesuit tradition he got to be a part of while here.

Whitchurch said he found out about the hiatus after current graduate students called him and told him about it.

“It’s sad because they have so much potential,” he said. “I hope they can show more transparency and be more clear about why they’re doing this and hopefully what they’re going to do to try and give the department the resources it needs to become a flourishing Ph.D. program.”

OPINION

February 12, 2020

Page 7

The Fordham Ram

Progress Still Needed in Life Expectancy Rise

By OWEN CRANN

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Recently, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the average life expectancy for Americans increased in 2018 for the first time in four years, ending an alarming trend of annual decreases since 2014. Prior to 2015, the last time that the United States had experienced a decline in life expectancy was in 1993, during the AIDS epidemic. To put the rarity of this recent trend in even greater context, the last prolonged stagnation of the life expectancy in this country occurred during the 1960s.

There were several drivers of this increase in life expectancy, the most significant of which was a decline in the number of cancer-related deaths.

There was a 2.2% drop in the number of deaths due to cancer from 2017 to 2018, which, according to Rebecca Siegel of the American Cancer Society, represents the single largest yearly decline in the cancer mortality rate since records have been kept on the matter. The main reason for this drop in cancer-related deaths was a decline in the number of deaths from lung cancer, which makes sense as the smoking rate continues to decrease in this country.

Another important driver of the increase in life expectancy was a drop in the number of drug-related

COURTESY OF FLICKR

The U.S. life expectancy rise does not take away from remaining problems.

deaths, specifically opioid-related deaths. According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there was a 4.1% decline in the number of fatalities from drug overdoses from 2017 to 2018. A decline in the number of deaths from prescription opioids was the main reason for the drop in the overall drug mortality rate.

Although this recent news surely represents a positive development for American society, as the average life expectancy represents the most basic measurement that can be used to determine the overall health of a society, there is still ample reason to be concerned about the overall well-being of Americans. First of all, the United States continues to lag

behind other developed countries in this metric and, even more worryingly, trails much poorer countries in this regard. For instance, the average life expectancies in both Costa Rica and Slovenia are substantially greater than that of the United States.

Furthermore, this increase in life expectancy could prove to be a one-off occurrence for several reasons. To begin, there is no evidence that the opioid crisis has definitively subsided. Although the decline in opioid-related deaths certainly represents a positive sign that the opioid crisis could be abating, according to Robert Anderson of the CDC, it is too soon to determine “whether (this country has) reached a turning point” in combating the opioid crisis.

Dr. Holly Hedegaard, the individual who authored the CDC report about the decline in drug-related deaths, expressed a similar sentiment when speaking to U.S. News & World Report. According to Dr. Hedegaard, “A one-year change (is not) enough (evidence) to really say that (this country) is over the hump” in regards to the opioid crisis.

Moreover, there are several worrying trends concerning substance abuse in the United States that need to be reversed if life expectancy is to continue increasing. The number of fentanyl-related deaths increased by 10% from 2017 to 2018. In addition, the number of deaths involving cocaine more than tripled from 2012 to 2018 and increased year-to-year at a rate of 27%.

If those statistics were not troubling enough, according to the CDC, the number of alcohol-related deaths doubled between 1999 and 2017. All of those numbers reveal this country is experiencing more substance abuse crises than just the often talked-about opioid crisis.

Another crisis that could contribute to future declines in life expectancy if not dealt with properly is the suicide crisis, particularly among adolescents. According to a CDC report, the suicide rate among teens and those in their early twenties skyrocketed by 56% between 2007 and

2017. Furthermore, the number of suicide attempts by young people quadrupled from 2011 to 2017.

According to Jean M. Twenge, a research psychologist at San Diego State University, this country “is in the middle of a full-blown mental health crisis for adolescents and young adults.” Although much has been reported about the health crisis among middle-aged white Americans, and rightly so, there is currently a health crisis among young Americans as well, as evidenced by those disturbing statistics.

In an age when the average life expectancy in many countries is increasing at a rapid pace, the United States has been left behind. Although the increase from 2017 to 2018 is certainly good news, it represents a modest increase, at best, and still trails the life expectancy just four years prior. From 1968 to 2010, the average life expectancy in the United States increased by an average of approximately two years per decade, yet from 2010 to 2018, it did not increase at all, suggesting that this country is struggling with serious societal problems that must be addressed if we are to make any meaningful progress as a nation.

Owen Crann, GSB ’23, is a finance major from Morristown, N.J.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...

Award Shows Were Relevant

COURTESY OF PIA FISCHETTI / THE FORDHAM RAM

Award shows are not as popular among viewers as they were the past.

By ALLISON LECCE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I didn’t watch the Grammys this year, or the year before, or probably the year before that. I didn’t watch the Grammys because I knew the results would be all over Instagram and Twitter the next morning. I could get two and a half hours worth of awards and performances summed up in my morning scroll through social media.

So why waste my time watching the show?

In the age of social media and instant access to information, award shows have been struggling to maintain their relevance. Grammys 2020 seemed to be a desperate attempt to appease younger generations. Billie Eilish brought home five awards, four of which were from the night’s

most coveted categories (Best New Artist, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Record of the Year).

Of course, Billie Eilish’s voice is astounding for someone her age, and it is no question that she deserved these awards. However, this did not seem like a decision based on the talent and artistic ability of the nominees. Rather, it seemed to be an attempt to keep the Grammys relevant by letting the (arguably) most relevant pop artist of the year sweep the major categories.

On the other hand, award shows seem to be stuck in the past. TIME recently reported “the median age of viewers for all four top-tier telecasts—Oscars, Globes, Emmys and Grammys—had soared past 50, an increase of more than 10 years since the turn of the millennium.”

This is not a surprising statistic.

Award shows used to be a way for people to get together and find out what was considered the best of the best in Hollywood and around the country. The nominations and winners largely determined which songs would dominate the radio, which movies would stay in theaters for months and which television shows would be renewed.

Now, though, much of this power lies in the influence of social media.

A celebrity’s Instagram following is just as important as the awards they have won. On Spotify’s artist pages, one can find out how many monthly listeners an artist has, what their ranking on Spotify is and other clear indicators about their popularity. There is no need for a three hour show to find out who is best. Billie Eilish is the fifth most listened to person on Spotify — was anyone really surprised when she took home five awards?

Award shows have also been the subject of controversy due to their lack of diversity. This year, the Golden Globes, Oscars and BAFTAS (The British Academy of Film and Television) were all criticized for their lack of people of color and female nominees.

This is nothing new for these shows. BBC News found that since 2000 only four women have been nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes, as opposed to over 100 men.

Additionally, the Academy has nominated only three women for Best Director, in contrast to 87 men, in the past 20 years.

Hashtags like #OscarsSoWhite and #BAFTASSoWhite have circulated online as a result of this lack of diversity. Lupita Nyong’o and Jennifer Lopez, who received heavy praise for their roles in “Us” and “Hustlers,” respectively, were among actors that people feel were snubbed for nominations.

In the era of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Generation Equality and other diversity and empowerment movements, there is simply no room for this ignorance. All-white, all-male movies and productions may have dominated the entertainment industry since its beginnings, but younger generations are no longer interested in this monopoly. People are making it increasingly clear that they want to see actors who represent them. Unfortunately, it seems as though award shows are stuck in the past when it comes to this type of recognition.

The rise of streaming services and the plethora of content they are putting out poses a threat to award shows for exactly this reason. The pool of potential nominees has increased exponentially and is becoming much more diverse. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Netflix released 19 original movies from firsttime directors in 2019; 11 more are already scheduled for 2020. About half the directors making Netflix

debuts last year were women, and several were filmmakers of color.”

Streaming services are looking to different demographics to make new and unique pieces of art that will satisfy a larger range of viewers.

People are going to stop caring about the awards if the nominations continue to be so homogenous. Instead of tuning into the Oscars, they are going to log into their Netflix account and watch a movie starring a Latinx cast or directed by a black woman.

The Academy Awards are still a popular, talked-about phenomenon, but just because the awards are timeless doesn’t mean the shows are.

These shows need to look to their audience to learn about society’s ever-changing values, and make sure they reflect those values in their nominations. At the same time, they must continue to preserve their goal of praising the most talented, not just the most popular (as with Billie’s sweep at the Grammys). It is a delicate balance, and it will take dedication and thoughtfulness to achieve.

But if award shows can’t find a way to do this without selling themselves out or isolating their audience, we may be looking at the end of an era.

Allison Lecce, FCRH ’22, is an international studies major and journalism minor from Westchester, N.Y.

OPINION

Page 8

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 Helen Stevenson Managing Editor Andrew Posadas Editorial Director Kelly Christ Multimedia Director Kristen Egan Business Director James Rosato Operations Director Robert (Max) Quintas Production Editor Vanessa DeJesus Copy Chiefs Emma Butler Erica Weidner News Editor Sarah Huffman Projects Editor Joergen Ostensen Assistant News Editor Hasna Sena Ceran Opinion Editors Kelly Christ Emma Lipkind Culture Editors Rachel Gow Kieran Press-Reynolds Sports Editor Jimmy Sullivan Assistant Sports Editors Dylan Balsamo Alexander Wolz Digital Producer Katherine Morris Visual Director Hunter Benegas Photo Editor Jennifer Huang Graphics/Illustrations Pia Fischetti Faculty Advisor Jessica Baldwin-Philippi Editorial Page Policy

The Fordham Ram’s editorial is

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

Opinions Policy The Fordham Ram accepts 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.

February 12, 2020

From the Desk | Emma Lipkind

Refusal to Vote Undermines Democracy The 2016 presidential election was the first election that I ever bothered to care about. I was 15 years old with hardly any knowledge about politics besides the fact that everyone around me hated talking about it. Still, something about the polarity between the candidates and the constant controversy peaked my interest.

I wasn’t a fan of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Neither was pretty much anyone I knew. This was the general consensus of many people, and voters had a difficult task at hand: to pick the lesser of two evils. In this historic election, disapproval ratings for both candidates were among the highest America had ever seen.

The average disapproval rating of then-candidate Donald Trump and Sec. Hillary Clinton were 58.5% and 54.4%, respectively. These are the highest rates we have seen thus far, since most past presidential candidates fell well below 50%.

Americans are constantly told that each individual vote matters and that the fate of the country rests with the people. These sentiments make it even more difficult to pry oneself away from the negative aspects of each candidate. However, as the years go by, it seems as though neither Re-

publicans nor Democrats can find a candidate that pleases the American majority.

Although I was unable to vote at the time of the 2016 election, I recall being genuinely bothered by people who refused to vote altogether. After President Donald Trump was elected — without winning the popular vote, I may add — I promised myself that I would cast a ballot for every election that occurred from the day I turned 18.

During the 2018 election cycle, I worked at a local polling site.

Throughout some of the slower moments of the generally hectic day, I passed the time by calling friends and family. I called my parents and was disappointed to hear that no one in my immediate family planned on voting, even though they were all of-age.

They told me that they felt it was a waste of time since it was not a presidential election. Later, I discovered that they had not voted in the historic 2016 election either because they simply could not decide on which candidate deserved their votes.

I forced both my parents and my brother to drive the measly five minutes from our house to the polling site where I was working to cast a vote.

Maybe their votes didn’t completely alter the fate of the election, but I was still proud that my family played its role in democracy.

Today, with the disappointing production put on by the Iowa caucuses not too far behind us, I have no idea how I am going to keep 15-year-old Emma’s promise to America. It can be challenging to continue encouraging people to vote when turnout results thus far have been well below expected rates.

As I obsessively follow the 2020 election, this upcoming November, my ballot will be among those that decide the fate of the nation. I grow more and more terrified to vote. Maybe my fear stems from the responsibility I feel to make the best decision, or maybe it stems from my gut expectations. Despite who becomes president, growing bipartisanship in our country will not allow for any meaningful changes to be made.

Regardless, I am going to do it. I am going to vote in both the primaries and the general election, even if my decisions keep me awake at night.

This is what I urge all American citizens to do. I recognize there are people who simply cannot vote for reasons that are perfectly valid, but

this should further provide incentive to those who can to cast a ballot.

I learned in my high school U.S. government class that it is a citizen’s civic duty to vote. So why is it that so many people abstain from such an important responsibility? Granted, it says a great deal about our political system that so many people, like myself, are so deeply rattled by this year’s election that they are unable to decide at all. Despite this, though, change will never arise if people sit idly by and hope someone else will play their part for them.

For these reasons, there should be no excuse to decidedly abstain from voting. However, I can sympathize with caucusing states, considering the inaccessibility and complexity of the procedure that naturally deters voters. To everyone else, though, all eyes are on you to vote at every election.

Editorial | Awards Season

Seeing Past the One-Inch-Tall Barrier

The South Korean film “Parasite” made history at the 92nd Academy Awards on Sunday, becoming the first non-English language film to take home the coveted Best Picture award. The film’s director, Bong Joon Ho, was also awarded Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. While one night cannot erase the Oscars’ historical lack of diversity, the award marks a momentous occasion for the often-disregarded genre of non-English films.

In the past decade, foreign language films have struggled to find commercial success on the same scale as English-language films.

While diversity in the Academy Awards has been a hot topic in the last few years, non-English language films face even bigger challenges. Many viewers are deterred by the presence of subtitles.

The obstacles that these films have had to achieving success is a “psychological barrier,” as veteran producer Janet Yang told TIME magazine. Some believe that the subtitles are distracting, causing the viewer to miss visual aspects of the film. The aversion to subtitles has been so well-known that it has led companies like Netflix to emphasize dubbing over foreign-language media with English. There seems to be an illusion of added effort in viewing a film in a language other than English, as if reading the subtitles is a challenge that the everyday filmgoer does not want to deal with.

Just like an aversion to the “effort” of reading novels that leads many to prefer film or television, there is a world of imagination that is being shut out by continuing to ignore this genre. In some ways, the subtitles can work in the viewer’s favor, as they may promote focus.

With the increasing preference for watching films at home on streaming services, viewers are often distracted by cell phones in their

home compared to a theater, where phone use is not allowed. Subtitles draw the viewer in, keeping their attention to the screen while the movie plays.

In addition to these notions, Asian films, filmmakers and actors have grappled with an inability to truly resonate with American audiences. Though the victory of “Parasite” should not be downplayed, it should be noted that none of the film’s stars received any acting nominations at the Oscars. With a history of whitewashing Asian roles and simply excluding Asian actors from playing nuanced characters in Hollywood as a whole, it comes as no surprise that they have not received the recognition that they deserve at award ceremonies.

Even with as massive a success as “Parasite,” its actors did not receive the recognition that they deserve.

The film was just the 11th Best Picture winner to take home the top prize without receiving any acting nominations. In a likely not unrelated circumstance, the last time this happened was 2008, when “Slumdog Millionaire” — a British film with a primarily Asian cast — was awarded Best Picture with no acting nominations.

Podcast host Jeff Yang told the Washington Post, “Both Asian and Asian-American actors tend to be (perceived as) anonymous and vaguely foreign, and therefore sort of invisible in the minds of prospective academy voters.”

This year, the Academy Awards did make an effort to alleviate this stereotype: the category once known as Best Foreign Language Film is now called Best International Feature Film. “Parasite” is the category’s first winner.

While the name change hoped to shift away from the notion of international films as something “other,” the new title adds more

questions to an already complicated category. Though the name has been updated, the qualifications for the category remain the same. Each country must choose a single movie for the category each year, which is approved by a committee.

Additionally, the title’s use of “international” is misleading, as many of the films that are nominated across all categories are not from American production companies.

For example, films from British production companies are often nominated in some of the biggest categories each year. “1917” and “Marriage Story,” two nominees for Best Picture this year, were both produced by British companies.

Unfortunately, the issue of representation of Asian cinema was far from the Academy Awards’ only diversity problem. Not a single female director was nominated this year for Best Director — despite the strong work of directors such as Greta Gerwig for “Little Women.” In the history of the award, just five female directors have ever been given the nod, with Kathryn Bigelow taking home the only award of the group for 2009s “The Hurt Locker.”

The problem does not start and end with the Academy Awards. Female directors must be given the opportunity to prove their abilities and talents in the first place. As with racism, the rampant sexism in Hollywood will not be erased with one award win, but it may enable a new generation of aspiring female and non-white filmmakers and actors to envision themselves on that stage one day.

The stigma facing foreign-langauge films will likely still persist despite the success of “Parasite.”

However, the demonstration that a non-English film can break barriers proves that, as viewers, we must make the conscious decision to immerse ourselves in films that are

outside of our comfort zone.

Film, and art in general, is not about telling the same story over and over. Instead, we hope to step inside the shoes of someone else, to understand the complexities inside each of us. While international films like “Parasite” highlight the cultural elements of their setting, they also prove the global community is capable of empathizing with the experiences of those outside of our culture. They expose the Western world to perspectives they might not have confronted otherwise.

The very notion of a foreign film is contingent on one’s context. When accepting the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at last year’s ceremony, director Alfonso Cuarón told the audience, “I grew up watching foreign language films and learning so much from them and being inspired.” These films included “Jaws,” “Citizen Kane” and “The Godfather.”

The Academy’s decision to update the category’s title is ultimately a step in the right direction. While it complicates the category’s qualifications, the new title serves to show that “foreign” may not be the best way to refer to these films. The victory of “Parasite” also proves that these films are far from limited to this category alone.

For the Fordham community, we are privileged to have access to movies that are not awarded general wide releases, as is the case of most non-English films. New York City theaters such as Film Forum, The Angelika and IFC Center are just some of the many cinematic hubs that showcase these unique works.

Step out of your comfort zone and see what you have been missing.

Bong Joon-ho said it best: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to many more amazing films.”

OPINION

February 12, 2020

Page 9

Partisan Tensions on Display During State of the Union

By NOAH OSBORNE STAFF WRITER

The year is off to a politically turbulent start in America, and it seems that even with the conclusion of the impeachment trial for President Donald Trump, the frenzy will not dissipate any time soon. The bipartisan tension was far from relieved during last Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, which gave President Trump the opportunity to address the nation and potentially unite a country that is torn between party lines.

However, the address was plagued with discontent, child-like antics and self-absorbed debacles that made the speech feel more like a dated reality television show to the nation.

Historically, the State of the Union has given the commanderin-chief the opportunity to speak to the nation’s concerns and elaborate on what will be done to support the interests of the people.

Attempts have even been made to reach across the aisle to aspire to work not for their parties but for America as a whole.

However, the opposite occurred during last week’s address.

Between President Trump’s refusal to shake Speaker Pelosi’s hand and Pelosi ripping the transcript of the president’s speech on national television, it has become apparent that the interests

of the nation are less of a priority.

However, the State of the Union Address yielded some highlights, as people received awards and a military family was reunited. Even though this was supposed to take center stage during the address, the majority of the night focused more on the disdain between President Trump and Speaker Pelosi.

Although it was on everyone’s mind, President Trump’s impeachment trial was never mentioned. Instead of boasting of his inevitable acquittal, Trump chose to center his speech along the motif of “the great American comeback.” American comeback or not, the speech did not do any

favors to President Trump as many Americans, especially in the Democratic Party, are livid with the acquittal by the Senate. President Trump’s State of the Union Address only further damaged his reputation in terms of uniting the Democratic and Republican Parties. Refusing to shake Speaker Pelosi’s hand perpetuated this division as it showed that President Trump, who is responsible for ensuring that the nation is united above all else, was unwilling to even show the slightest respect to his Democratic counterpart.

I am not diminishing his sense of frustration with Speaker Pelosi impeaching him. President Trump may resent Speaker Pelosi,

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President Trump’s State of the Union Address was filled with paritisan tension.

but he has no right to disrespect her either, especially when the country is watching and yearning for a sense of bipartisan unity.

President Trump had his chance to show that even through adversity, he respects his detractors and is willing to work through any differences for the sake of American unity. Unfortunately, he failed to do so. What exacerbated an already muddled speech was his reunion of a military family. It is always a tear-jerking sight to behold brave soldiers, returning from arduous service to America, as they reunite with their loved ones.

However, their reunion at Trump’s State of the Union felt less like the spotlight was on them —which it should have been — and more like an exploitative means to divert attention from the fact that President Trump is only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. As if America was not already displeased by this, we had no moment of rejuvenation when our house speaker sunk to new levels of low.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who made the argument that President Trump was lacked the overall maturity to be president, stooped to the level of a disgruntled child by tearing up President Trump’s speech on live television. What is worse is that she deliberately waited until the cameras were on her to do it. As

someone who launched the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Speaker Pelosi showed that instead of being the calm and eloquent speaker America needs, she would tear asunder anything that upsets her. By tearing President Trump’s speech, the only statement she made was that she was angry that she did not have her way with President Trump’s impeachment. We as a nation do not need immature representatives with all that is happening around the world, such as world hunger, global terrorism and war.

We need representatives who will endure any event that may arise. Pelosi’s ripping of President Trump’s speech shows that in this respect, she has failed.

Speaker Pelosi achieved one thing by ripping Trump’s speech: she has shown that the divide in America between the Democratic and Republican Parties is more apparent now than ever before.

This trivial behavior has hurt the prospect of uniting the country and is providing President Trump the political ammunition he needs to accomplish their worst nightmare: his re-election.

Unity in America has been torn, and I do not think it will be taped back together anytime soon.

Noah Osborne, FCRH ’23, is a journalism major from Harlem, N.Y.

Iowa State University’s Chalking Ban Threatens Freedom of Speech

By TAYLOR HERLIZCH CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Iowa State University has recently been thrust into a controversy over rights to free speech after temporarily banning a tradition of political chalking from non-registered student groups.

During the presidential election season, Iowa State can usually be seen with sidewalks sporting political messages in chalk, an ironic pastime that spreads political awareness through a common childhood practice. Many of these chalk drawings alert fellow students to different events supporting certain candidates or will simply share support with various slogans from campaigns for President Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and so on.

However, numerous chalk drawings have also crossed a not-so childlike line, filling sidewalks with hateful comments in pastel blues and pinks. These negative messages have included anti-Semitic and racist comments, among others.

The University administration banned chalking in an attempt to mellow the division evident amongst the student body.

Although the university’s bans against individual chalking were an attempt to unite the student body, the only way that would work is if the student body united in frustration over these limiting bans.

However, even this faux unity is not substantial. Iowa State is known for having prevalent student groups that are outspoken in their political views, with both College Democrat and College Republican congregations on-campus. Student responses are mixed, with the New York Times stating that, “Many … College Democrats have lined up in support of the restrictions, while the College Republicans are largely against them.” The bans have only increased partisan divisions amongst students, and they have morphed into an issue of free speech rights.

In fact, the university was even sued for limiting students’ rights to free speech by Speech First, a group dedicated to protecting this constitutional right. This is not the first issue Iowa State University has encountered over limits to students’ rights. Their interaction with Speech First has also included battles over the university’s attempt to prevent students from sending out political emails using their university-issued email accounts.

At first glance, these bans may seem reasonable. There were a multitude of chalkings that were clearly out of hand, such as multiple comments that referenced Hitler. Substantial amount of these hateful chalkings were used to deface previously existing messages in a further attempt to spread further animosity. While political aware-

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Before the Iowa caucus, Iowa State University banned chalking on campus.

ness amongst college students is a necessity considering colleges are ripe with fresh voters, there are some messages that simply cross a line, and we should never accept offensive comments from hate groups.

Nonetheless, banning political chalking altogether is not the best option. It is certainly the easiest, and that is why it makes sense that Iowa State’s first instinct when presented with a barrage of hateful comments was to ban the comments altogether. This, unfortunately, does not solve the much bigger problem. Hate must be stopped from its source, not from its platform. By banning political chalking, the university prevents other rule-abiding students from expressing their own political opin-

ions in a healthy manner and keeping the conversation about politics alive. If there is no platform for students to proudly display their political opinions, there will only be an increase in partisan division because students will not be prompted to think about the other side on their daily walk to class.

Hate is derived from ignorance.

It is a nature of disrespect that comes from pure, unchallenged obliviousness. The only way to truly stop this practice is to educate these students on people different from themselves. Hate groups will not die down if individuals are not challenged to actually learn about those that are different from them, and to suppress their instinct to fear anyone different from themselves. While it is obviously easier

for hate groups to sneak out in the middle of the night and write their offensive comments, that does not mean that it is the only way in which these hurtful messages are spread. There is probably still an abundance of slurs and ignorant comments made every day by these same people, and while they may not be as plentiful as the faceless messages sprawled across the sidewalk, they are just as powerful.

It is definitely harder to stop hate through education, but it is also the most effective solution. Rather than limiting free speech for all students, why not teach students why their specific speech is ignorant? Teach students to be open-minded. In classrooms, professors should never force their own opinions on students, but rather, teach them to be open to hearing any and all opinions before making judgements.

After all, isn’t that why students are there in the first place: to learn?

Iowa State agreed to teach these students, so they should do what they promised to do. Don’t punish all students for the hateful actions of others, but start to prevent this hate. Ignorance stems from a lack of education. The answer is simple: do your job and challenge these students’ obliviousness.

Taylor Herzlich, GSB ’23, is a business administration major from Mount Sinai, N.Y.

Page 10

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CULTURE

February 12, 2020

Page 11

“José” Struggles to Fully Captivate

By ALEX DICKISON STAFF WRITER

There are often two types of same-sex love stories: those that end up being gay love romance films, and those that end up being veiled socio-political essays about the endless trials faced by gay lovers. “José” turns out to be more of the former — which is surprising given its locale, Guatemala City, is nestled in the heart of one of the most religious regions in the world.

Our leading man, José (Enrique Salanic), is a 19-year-old down on hard times in poor places. He spends his days serving as the front door man for a hot dog shop, encouraging passers-by to come have a bite to eat. In his free-time he’s constantly on his phone — but he isn’t playing any Candy Crush. It’s all gay dating apps for this young Guatemalan, a modern-day plot device that conveniently smoothes over the question of how he meets his lovers.

Electronic socialization very quickly turns José on to Luis (Manolo Herrera), with whom he fires up a relationship that means more than any one-night stand.

Here would be the opportunity for the road not taken, where Director Li Cheng could first begin to mount up pernicious opposition to the forbidden love.

Cheng is capable of attacking from any direction he pleases in

this devoutly Christian setting, thwarting passion with family, priest or police. Instead, what we get is a slow, inconclusive romance and muted, indecisive passion. The focus always rests with the two young men, what they think of each other, how they love and fight. Even when they quarrel José and Luis speak in low tones — their sex is practically silent.

Cheng films naturistically, with a maximum of reflection and distance from the action. Anytime a scene permits it he’ll jump the camera back to a vantage point a football field away, ditching the close-up of a quiet conversation for a lush tropical city panorama.

He does this sonically too. He charges up the soundtrack with the racket of cars and people, substitutes the low throbbing beat of distant Latin music for dialogue, amps up the soundwaves a few decibels when talk won’t do and lets his characters bathe in moodily rhythmic background noise.

Cheng sees this cinematographic ambiguity as most important in his story. It’s unspoken: it’s a boiling subterranean feeling that relies on hard work by leads Salanic and Herrera, to surface in gestures and facial expressions.

Another romantic interaction shows José around his spacious bachelor-pad and gives an invitation for him to move in. The camera zeroes in on José’s profile to draw out a mute unease, reluctance and disgust. Cheng relies on

this subtle shooting method over and over, pitching for the captive audience long silent observation sessions of José on public transportation or walking down hilly streets. These images are meant to conjure up, through close facial analysis, the pervasive uncertainty of his sexual and romantic life, but which really result in a feeling

of lethargy or languor the film never escapes.

Probably the most interesting performance comes from Ana Cecilia Mota as José’s mother, a weepy woman without a husband whose relationship with José is entirely ambiguous.

Their conversation is casual enough, but left to her own de-

vices Mota is harried, frequently and fervently praying for God to protect her hijo.

Is it Catholic devotion? Or deeper anxiety and awareness about José’s sexuality?

The question injects her character with a lively worry not seen — not permitted — in any of the film’s stoic macho men.

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Unfortunately, Director Li Cheng’s newest film “Jose” is too slow and inconclusive, failing to fully come alive.

Pop Smoke Strives for Longevity on “Meet The Woo 2”

By SAM HADELMAN STAFF WRITER

For the last few months it has become nearly impossible to walk around Brooklyn without hearing Pop Smoke’s voice blaring over traffic. It makes sense, seeing as he is the latest rising artist from

the region to declare himself “The King of NY.” He is the first incarnation of Brooklyn drill’s crossover into the mainstream, and with this visibility comes dilution.

We have seen many music scenes evolve and morph into mainstream standards, and in some cases we have seen them lose the

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Pop Smoke is one of the latest rising rappers in the hip-hop sphere.

essence that made the music so entrancing. With “Meet The Woo 2,” Pop Smoke is dipping his toes into the area of mainstream appeal, and for better or for worse, it has worked.

Pop Smoke’s baritone raps are addicting. His ability to dominate any UK Drill beat is one of the many skills in his arsenal that make him the primetime star we see today.

Brooklyn drill is still in its developmental stages as artists try to determine the parameters of the genre. If you pay attention, Pop Smoke’s music is actually quite distinguishable from other artists from the scene, which is ironic as he is often accused of only producing one homogenous sound. What makes Pop Smoke so rare is his quick ascension into worldwide appeal, something we haven’t seen in other drill scenes.

Specifically, Chicago drill was highly reliant on platforms such as YouTube, and the object of that scene wasn’t exactly mainstream attention but rather a hyper-realistic lens into what was transpiring in the area.

What makes Brooklyn drill, and Pop Smoke, so thought provoking is the object of its existence. It’s not only made for New York, as it can be adapted and shifted for a worldwide audience.

This is a privilege that Chicago drill never got because of the ca-

pabilities of platforms at the time.

“Meet The Woo 2” capitalizes on the sound that has brought Pop Smoke the notoriety that he deserves, yet it does not offer a showing of evolution from him.

He raps on a similar pack of beats from his main producer 808MeloBeats, which at some points can sound extremely formulaic. There is no doubt that Pop Smoke can create hits, but the question remains: can he produce much else?

Though this may sound illogical, when an artist only strives to make songs that are “hits,” their discography becomes diluted.

The only expectations they are operating on are that of the majority, rather than that of the local fans that brought them to their current place. That being said, Pop Smoke still created a record that is undoubtedly catchy and has great replay value. That is the crucial aspect of critique; from afar it would seem that Pop Smoke took very few risks on the album, stayed with a consistent sound and produced something that objectively is not much different from his past work.

However, his ability to just create music that is hot cannot be understated, and that’s the crux of this album. There is something undeniable about Pop Smoke’s ability to create music that will have intense radio play and replay value. Yet, is this the formula to

longevity?

The best aspects of the record are when it’s collaborators bring the best out of Pop Smoke. A prime example of this is Lil Tjay, another rising New York star. He gives Pop Smoke’s music the fun, upbeat center that some of his other records may be missing.

Another key collaboration on this album comes from its production credits, with one crucial beat coming from UK drill’s hottest producer, Axl Beats on the song “She Got A Thing.” This song shows promise for Pop Smoke’s future, as it is an evolved version of his past work that provides a fresh outlook for his output.

Other collaborations do not bring much differentiation, like that from A Boogie Wit da Hoodie. The records involving other artists on the album are aesthetically pleasing, yet they could have been improved with more experimentation.

Overall, the album is a great step towards bringing Brooklyn drill to the mainstream, with Pop Smoke not weakening his art in comparison with past work.

My only concern is whether or not Brooklyn drill’s key artist will continue to be transformative and experimental. The genre must not become stale, or reach the same fate in other hyper-local music scenes that have found quick and unchecked mainstream attention.

CULTURE

Page 12

February 12, 2020

Creative Essay | Collin Bonnell

Looking Up: Stars and Solitude in New Mexico My routine this summer was simple. I’d wake up around 7 a.m. and make the long walk from my canvas tent in the orchard up to the ranch house. It was cold at 9,000 feet, but I usually avoided wearing layers since the New Mexican sun would make it sweltering well before noon. The route went through a dirt road, which transformed into a shallow river when the midsummer rains came. When I made it to the house, I brushed the mud from my boots.

The next steps were to put the French press on the burner, make breakfast and then brush the floors.

If one of my coworkers had overslept, we’d ring the old rusty bell which had a string leading into the house. Then we opened all the doors, gave a few tours of the ranch house, broke for lunch, gave some more tours and closed at four. We spent the next few hours working in the gardens, making dinner and occasionally baking.

My favorite part of the day was when the sun would set and reveal a tapestry of stars, their light rivaled only by the occasional halo of lightning in the distance — thunderstorms are a near-daily occurrence in New Mexico during the summer, although the geography of our canyon meant they often missed us.

Without the luxury of the internet, our only sources of entertainment were books and music with the occasional fire, so I tended to

head in early. I’d fall asleep with one of my tent flaps open, revealing the stars above the canyon wall.

We worked in shifts of nine days on, three days off. When my off days came, I’d hitch a ride on one of the buses delivering campers or a passing truck back to base camp, where I’d visit with my brother when our schedules lined up. I spent the days at base camp resting, reading, planning and coordinating expeditions with other staff, and taking evening walks.

On one of our walks, my brother and I ran into an adult crew leader — we called them “advisors” — positioned alongside the road. The advisor was taking pictures of the sky, and when we greeted him we realized what he was photographing. The moon was rising over the prairie, and it had taken on a blood red color unlike anything I had seen before or since.

Company is a treasured rarity in New Mexico, and as usual we started a long conversation with this advisor, who we soon learned was from New Jersey. He told us about his fascination with the stars, which my brother and I had gotten used to during the prior two months, but which were quite alien to the advisor and his troop.

The advisor was up because he spent the nights taking photos of the stars. It was worth the sleep deprivation. On his first night on the trail, he explained, he woke his entire

COURTESY OF COLLIN BONNELL FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

Collin Bonnell, a former Ram opinion editor, spent the last summer in New Mexico, staring at stars and traveling.

troop up at 1 a.m. to look up. The milky way had risen. His son had never seen it before. This exchange occurred a month before I left New Mexico and returned to New York after spending about 48 hours back home in Boston.

I had prepared myself for the ascetic lifestyle of living in the wilderness before leaving for New Mexico, but I hadn’t thought to prepare myself for my return to civilization.

I woke up at 4 a.m. on the morning of my departure. Although I had spent an hour looking up while laying down on a picnic table the night before, I wanted to see the stars one last time. It was cold, but I willed myself to drag all my belongings

across base camp in the dark.

I spent the next hour looking up, seeing the stars fade at last and waiting for my shuttle to Denver as dawn broke. Even while leaving, I was amazed by the colors emitted by the sun rising over a mesa as we traveled northeast on the empty highway.

There was no one in sight.

I spent my first night in New York on my friend’s couch in his apartment. There was no air conditioning but it made no difference to me. I hadn’t slept in a room with air conditioning in months. The next day I moved into my new dorm room, of which I was the only occupant for the next few days.

I was used to being alone by this

point, and it didn’t really bother me that no one else was there. When I did venture to my friend’s apartment in Belmont, I usually left after a few minutes. I wasn’t used to being around people and craved solitude after a few minutes of crowd anxiety.

On my way back to campus one of those first nights, I noticed I was again taking a quiet walk. The air was cold. I remembered the stars and looked up. They were gone.

There are many wonders I experienced this summer. I climbed mountains, braved the surprisingly heavy rains of July, evaded mountain lions and scaled canyon walls.

None of these compare to the sublime sensation I felt while looking

No Need to Stress Over Valentine’s Day

By ABBEY DELK

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Valentine’s Day is the most disgusting and blatantly capitalist holiday of the year — when I’m single.

When I am in a relationship, it is a beautiful, romantic day to celebrate the most wonderful aspect of the human experience: love. It is also a great excuse to overindulge in chocolate.

But why have we, as a society, chosen to make this one day such a big deal? It hangs like a bulging pink cloud over the entire month of February.

Turn your calendar over from January, and you cannot ignore the huge red heart pasted right in the middle of the page. It is inescapable.

The Valentine’s Day craze starts young. I remember my mother bent

over our kitchen table, hot-gluing shimmering paper hearts to a shoebox to create my valentine box when I was in kindergarten. Every year we dreamed bigger. The box became more sparkly and more pink with each passing Valentine’s Day. It was important to get right because the valentine box was the ultimate measure of social status in grade school. Sure, everyone was supposed to give the whole class a valentine each, but there were still ways to subtly play favorites. You gave your friends and your crush the best ones from the package and gave the kid who picked his nose during every gym class the plainest. I lived in constant fear of receiving sub-standard cards and knowing I had been designated as unworthy of the fancy and expensive cards that came with stick-

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Valentine’s Day should be enjoyed no matter what your relationship status is.

ers or candy. By ensuring the box on my desk was precisely the right shade of pink, I thought the prettiest valentines were sure to be slipped inside.

Now the only person I receive valentines from is my mother. They come two days late from the Fordham post office and contain passiveaggressive reminders to call home more often. However, I do not take the noticeable lack of Hallmark cards from friends and lovers as a sign that I am unloved. It has been years since those grade-school paper hearts and I have learned to relax my idea of what Valentine’s Day should be.

For women, there seems to be a more specific sort of anxiety placed around the holiday. Young girls are taught to seek approval and affection, and this heightens during a time of year when your worth seems to be measured by whether someone bought you a heart-shaped box of chocolates from Walgreens. It is easy to fall into that mindset and feel bad about being lonely on the most romantic day of the year.

Yet this generation of young women seems to be better at tuning out that noise. I wanted to learn how women at Fordham have deconstructed all the crushing expectations associated with Valentine’s Day and learned to enjoy it.

I asked several cast members of “The Vagina Monologues,” the celebrated feminist play written by Eve Ensler and put on at Fordham last weekend by the Women’s Empowerment Club, about their feelings to-

wards Valentine’s Day. Kate McGuire, FCRH ’20, said she thought Valentine’s Day has become less stressful for modern women.

“Our generations of women are empowered and independent,” she said. “They don’t really care [about Valentine’s Day]. And the women who do? Good for them.”

Kiera Mullany, FCRH ’23, admitted that she does not pay much attention to the holiday.

“Most years I don’t even know it’s happening,” she said.

She said she thought Valentine’s Day was actually less stressful for single people.

“I feel worse for the couples on Valentine’s Day because they have pressure,” she said. “I can just go home and watch ‘Love, Actually.’”

Mullany also added that affection for a partner should not be confined to one day of the year.

“Anything you would do on Valentine’s Day to make it special, you should do all the time,” she said.

Shelby Daniel, FCRH ’20, said she sometimes lets the pressure surrounding Valentine’s Day get to her.

“Sometimes I do feel kind of overwhelmed with all of the hearts and the pink and the red and everything in your face,” she said. “I don’t think it’s uncommon to get a little sad if you’re single on Valentine’s Day, but also I go out of my way to make sure I spend time with friends.”

Daniel also shared the special connection she feels to her family on the holiday. She described the unexpect-

ed care package her parents sent her during her freshman year on Valentine’s Day and what it meant to her.

“For me, that was so special because it was my first year of college, my first year alone … It just reminded me that I love them,” she said.

Erin Benedict, FCRH ’20, said she and her partner plan to keep things simple this year.

“We’re not doing gifts because Christmas was too recent,” she said.

She also shared why she thinks Valentine’s Day can be valuable for couples. “I like the idea that there’s an excuse to do something with your partner if you’re not people who prioritize themselves.”

Whether you are single, in a relationship or just planning on scrolling through your Tinder matches all day, Valentine’s Day can be a fun and special day shared with the people you love. Chocolates and roses are nice, but so is going to your favorite restaurant with friends or just watching your favorite guilty pleasure film by yourself.

My boyfriend and I might get dinner this Valentine’s Day. We haven’t decided yet. He suggested ice skating the next day at Bryant Park or maybe visiting MOMA. What matters more to me than how much money he spends or how cute our Instagram pictures turn out is that he’s excited to spend time with me.

I am going to make sure I spend Valentine’s Day appreciating all the love in my life. And I’ll actually remember to call my mom this year.

CULTURE

February 12, 2020

Page 13

Louis Tomlinson Hits a Wall on “Walls”

By GRACE ROBINSON CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The split of One Direction (1D) hit hard for some of us, but it also blessed us with the soloists that emerged.

Rarely do we see a boy band break into several successful, independent artists. Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Liam Payne have each released their own albums. In a beautiful series of events, the breakup of 1D allowed four of the members to push their careers to new heights.

Yet Louis Tomlinson, the fifth member of the band, fell silent.

When we were younger, we each had a favorite 1D member, whether it was Harry, the heartthrob, or Niall, the sweetheart.

Even in the beginning, Louis was positioned as the quirky one who rarely had lead vocals. Of course, we loved Louis because he completed the five boys in the band, but seldom was he the poster boy on your wall.

Louis disappeared following the split of the band. While the other members were off creating increasingly polished tracks, Louis spent a long period of time recovering from the loss of his mother and sister. While managing his grief and the pressure to release new music, Louis fell off the radar.

Louis Tomlinson’s first album

“Walls” was released at the end of January and established the beginning of his solo career.

Before even listening to the tracks, I imagined the immense pressure Louis must have faced while writing the album. Not only is he the last member to produce his own sound, but his album was dropped only a month after the release of Harry’s “Fine Line,” which debuted at number one on Billboard’s 200. Finally breaking his silence, Louis had a lot to prove with this album.

I wanted nothing more than for Louis to find himself and break away from the constraints of the boy band. Yet, within only a matter of seconds listening to the tracks, it feels like 1D. The vocals appear as youthful and slightly undeveloped as the boy band appeared in their early stages, and without the support of other singers, the performance lacks a certain power.

Take “Kill My Mind,” for example. The song has a strong build-up to its chorus and exciting instrumentals reminiscent of 1D. Yet I am quickly brought back to the realization that 1D is over and this is simply Louis Tomlinson playing the part in this one-man show.

For those who miss the teen pop genre that was 1D, this album may be the sequel you have longed for, with tracks like “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart” and “Always You” that

include vocal layering in an attempt to make up for the lack of depth.

The abundance of flat, repetitive tracks proves that Louis’ first appearance in the spotlight was rushed and untimely. However, while Louis’ debut album is not the creative masterpiece I envisioned, it still manages to carry an abundance of potential.

Most importantly, the album was completely written by Louis, which is not only admirable but shows he is capable of composing strong lyrics. On their own, many of the lyrics stand out to me as intriguing and poetic, but alongside Louis’ Auto-Tuned voice and mainstream pop production, they quickly lose their charm.

I hoped that his album would encompass the moments of grief he felt from losing loved ones, paired with moments of progress towards peace.

Louis had the platform to create a masterpiece that left him vulnerable and reachable. Yet the pop-rock delivery lacking in genuine emotion and dimension sent Louis in the wrong direction. The only song dedicated to the passing is “Two of Us.” There is no surprise that entering the music scene comes at the price of pressure, competition and expectations. Louis Tomlinson, a former member of 1D, experienced these elements to an ex-

treme as he remained in the shadows of his four bandmates.

Sadly, “Walls” feels less than complete.

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Louis Tomlinson’s first album outside 1D fails to captivate listeners.

“Miss Americana” Gives a Look Into Taylor Swift’s Fame

By AVA LICHTER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Taylor Swift is a polarizing giant in pop culture. There is no clear consensus on whether she

is annoying, brave, real, calculated or fake. Some people think her writing is poetry, while others think it is overripe and unoriginal. As much as we think we know who Taylor Swift is, her Netflix

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Taylor Swift’s documentary “Miss Americana” gives insights about her fame.

documentary “Miss Americana” aims to give us a deeper look. Director Lana Wilson filmed it over the course of one and a half years.

It covers from Swift’s “Reputation” era to the present.

I don’t know that I would call myself a Taylor Swift fan, but I’ve been aware of her and her music since I was around 10 years old.

I found Taylor Swift annoying for a long time. I didn’t like her; I thought she was fake. The fact that she was always posting photos of her and all her model friends on Instagram. The faces she made when she sang. Her insistence that she was a normal person.

She couldn’t possibly have real friendships with all these famous women. She couldn’t really think she was like any of us when she was so famous. In other words, she bugged me.

I was not alone in this sentiment, as the documentary points out. As devoted and vast as her fanbase is, Taylor Swift has been the subject of criticism for years.

Despite my lukewarm opinion of her, when I watched “Miss Americana,” I couldn’t help smiling a little bit as she worked through the verses of her new songs. She seemed so happy in a way that isn’t “too-cool,” but genuine.

A lot of Taylor Swift’s success is due to her work ethic. In a home video from her teenage years when asked about her rising fame, she said, “I give myself 5 seconds a day to be happy ... the rest of the day I’m trying to make it last.”

That does seem to be true. She has made it last. She’s done this by reinventing herself many times, to the point that her fans can divide her life into different “eras.”

Many female artists seem to reinvent themselves every few years. Swift discusses the unfairness of this, saying that men aren’t faced with the constant pressure to keep fans entertained with a new era. She has an awareness of the finite nature of celebrity and doesn’t expect the public to stick with her through endless reincarnations of herself.

At the heart of the documentary is Swift’s struggle with her role as a celebrity and her relationship to not only her fans, but the general public. Fans lining up at her doorstep and constantly stalking her are just another part of the job for Swift.

What seems to get to her more is criticism. In one scene, as she is filming a music video, she looks over the footage and says, “I have a really slappable face.” To her, this seems to be a fact, and one that makes those working on the video more than a little uncomfortable.

Swift says that for years, all she wanted was for people to like her, which she associated with being good and successful.

After her controversy with Kanye West surrounding the lyrics of his song “Famous,” Swift stayed out of the public eye for over a year. She said that during that time, she had to learn how

not to seek praise and external validation, and rebuild her system of values.

Throughout the film, Taylor Swift also struggles with the idea of voicing her politics. While it is commonplace for celebrities and musical artists to use their platforms to encourage fans to vote for certain politicians, Swift always sidestepped questions about her political views. Finally, in 2018, she shared a political Instagram post. She encouraged her fans in Tennessee to vote against Marsha Blackburn for U.S. Senate because her policies were hurtful to women.

“Miss Americana” reveals the internal conflict between Taylor and her team surrounding the post. Swift and her mother have a tense discussion with her male managers who tell her that Bing Crosby never shared political opinions. While the parallel is not particularly apt, as Crosby was alive decades ago and it is much more common for celebrities to share political views now, Swift pushes back and insists on publishing the post.

“Miss Americana” paints Swift as a feminist in progress, as someone who is learning how to use her voice for the right reasons and someone who might fumble along the way. She might still annoy us sometimes, but after watching “Miss Americana,” I think her heart is in the right place, and at the end of the day, that is what matters.

CULTURE

Page 14

February 12, 2020

Bocca di Bacco: Impeccable Italian

By AVA ERICKSON

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

When you’re craving some tasty pizza or pasta you are faced with an overwhelming number of options. In fact, when you search “Italian food New York City,” Google presents you with 10 pages of restaurant options.

To make your search a little bit easier, I present Bocca di Bacco.

This New York-based restaurant has three locations: the Theatre District, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.

The kitchen is run by Kristen Sollene, a Food Network judge who is known for providing accessible cooking tips for people at home. She also has several books surrounding cooking and nutrition. Her husband, Robert Malta, also owns the local chain.

The duo opened Bocca di Bacco in 2007 and markets it as authentic Italian food with a modern twist. The restaurant started to take off in 2012 when they opened their third location. The New York Times featured them in a “highlight openings” article.

The restaurant has a sleek and minimalistic design. The dark woods and black accents give it a very sophisticated feel. The menu is simple with black type on white cardstock. Even when it is full inside, it is not too loud and the tables are spaced nicely. While the restaurant does feel trendy, the food tastes homey and delicious.

The servings are large, filling and

straightforward. Additionally, the service is impeccable. The bartenders, waiters and hosts are all incredibly friendly and attentive.

Some of the highlights on the menu are the Chef’s boards. They are a perfect appetizer to share with the table, with a selection of cheeses, meats and jams that melt in your mouth.

They range from $16 to $30 and are served on a chic, Instagramable wooden platter. The selections allow you to taste several different unique types of cheeses without commiting to an entire appetizer.

Aside from the Chef’s boards, there is a variety of other appetizer options, such as a soup of the day and several different salads complete with fresh greens and toppings. My favorite salad is the Tre Colori Salad. Its main ingredient is arugula, topped with radish, mushrooms and a tangy lemon vinaigrette.

When it comes to entrees there is a wide but not overwhelming selection, with both vegetarian and gluten-free options. They typically range from about $20 to $30.

There are some very traditional Italian pasta dishes, but they also offer several more Americanized options, such as a parmesancrusted chicken, seafood polenta and a steak with french fries and vegetables.

One of my favorite entrees is the Gnocchi alla Sorrentina. It’s a typical potato gnocchi with fresh tomato, basil and mozzarella

cheese.

This dish is quintessentially Italian and Bocca di Bacco perfects it.

Another highlight is the crafted

desserts. Of course, at any Italian restaurant, it is impossible not to order tiramisu. Bocca di Bacco’s tiramisu floats in your mouth and has the perfect sampling of each

key flavor of a typical tiramisu.

The Theatre District location is great for a pre-show meal, but any of the locations are worth their own trip to Manhattan.

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

Bocca di Bacco, with three locations across New York City, offers delicious, well-crafted traditional Italian food.

Meghan Trainor Returns Full-Force on “Treat Myself”

By ALEXANDRA LANGE STAFF WRITER

Best known for her 2014 mega-hit “All About That Bass,” Meghan Trainor is back and more

confident than ever on her latest project “Treat Myself.”

Stepping back into the spotlight four years after her last album “Thank You” was released, Trainor hasn’t lost her signature

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

Meghan Trainor dominates on her newest album “Treat Myself.”

hip-hop flare and sass.

“Treat Myself” ushers Trainor’s sound into a new decade, adding upgraded production with futuristic synths, intricate instruments and high-tech beats.

The album opens with “Wave,” which might be both the album’s best song and Trainor’s best song to date. It begins with a gospel-inspired blend of sound and vocals backing Trainor’s smoldering lyrics. About a minute into the song the beat drops, giving the song an electro-hip-hop feel.

Detailing Trainor’s commitment to love, despite its ups and downs, she sings, “Take me like a wave, pull me back and forth / Crash into my arms, tell me I am yours.” Producer Mike Sabath, who has produced for Liam Payne and J Balvin, adds a melodic verse and enhances the song’s melodic groove. “Wave” is a mature anthem, supplementing the sugary pop bounce of Trainor’s early career with inexplicable grace and ease.

Nicki Minaj joins Trainor on the album’s second track “Nice to Meet Ya,” which is engineered to be the album’s hardest hitting banger. Trainor’s signature carefree spirit is at full force on the track and is complimented by a pulsing hip-hop beat complete with keyboard stabs, heavy bass and danceable drums. Minaj flawlessly offsets Trainor’s vocals with her fierce verse and reminds lis-

teners why she is such a powerful force in the rap industry.

While much of “Treat Myself” features energetic beats, Trainor shows she isn’t afraid to strip down the production and show a more intimate, emotional side of herself.

She details her journey to selflove on “Workin’ on It.” She reflects on a woman’s experience of loving herself, flaws and all.

Lyrics like “Never been asked to dance / ’Cause I never been the pretty one / Never like compliments / ’Cause it’s always been so hard believin’ them” and “Time to be good to me / I should give myself way more love” are relatable and raw, capturing the subject of insecurity with mature elegance.

The additions of Lennon Stella of the Canadian duo Lennon & Maisy and Los Angeles pop artist Sasha Sloan add to the intimacy of Trainor’s heartfelt confession.

The trio combine their vocals into a lush soundscape and further reinforce the song’s empowering theme.

“Here to Stay” falls in the middle of the album and could easily get lost between the dynamic pop pulse of its surrounding tracks.

However, there is something undeniably special about the song, as it showcases a side of Trainor’s voice she doesn’t often share. Her instrumental range is on full display as the song is carried by a simple acoustic guitar instead of

her typical electronic production.

Trainor returns to her signature pop and hip-hop blend at the end of the album. The addition of the Pussycat Dolls on “Genetics” brings back the bold rhythm that is inseparable from Trainor. The song continues with the theme of self-love as she trills, “How you get that bass? Is it all fake? Made in LA?” The recently reunited Pussycat Dolls are a strong addition, bringing even more sassy energy to the track.

The album closes excellently. Produced by Mike Sabbath, “Have You Now” is a candycoated delight of a love song. The danceable track combines styles, starting subtly and transitioning to moments of EDM and pop.

She croons, “I’m glad I have you now / I’ve waited all this time / So don’t let me down.” “Have You Now” closes “Treat Myself” in a distinctly Trainor fashion and has proven to have success both with fans and commercially.

The genre-fusing album is a testament to Trainor’s talent, range and lyricism. It is a dynamic showcase of R&B, rap, EDM and pop. Intense, anthemic choruses fall alongside intimate, honest contemplation. Trainor is more confident and mature than ever, fully embracing her message of self-empowerment while also adding a sophisticated romanticism. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to “Treat Myself.”

CULTURE

February 12, 2020

Editor’s Pick| Social Media

Twitter Hits The Woah on TikTok

By RACHEL GOW CULTURE EDITOR

I have grappled with the decision of whether or not to download TikTok for some time. While I’ve managed to hold out until now — getting my fix from links shared by friends and sidelong glances at my roommates phone as she scrolls through the video sharing app — it has not been easy. As the lone survivor of the TikTok apocalypse among my friends, I am often left a bit bewildered when they all collapse into fits of laughter over quotes, that to me, hold no context.

That is of course, until the collective “it’s from a TikTok” is pointed pitifully in my direction. To the bitter disappointment of those around me, I cannot renegade, roll with the punches and only recently found out who Charli D’Amelio was. I have had to keep up with the gnawing thought that my failure to download TikTok is evidence that I’m getting old — each missed woah in the renegade dance like another gray hair sprouting on my 19-year-old head.

So, in the face of so much emotional trauma, you may ask why I do not simply download TikTok and move on with my life. The practical and more obvious reason is that I do not want, as many of my counterparts have, to surrender hours of my day to an app that I need to waste in other ways. Secondly, and more importantly, my social media loyalties lie elsewhere: with Twitter. Now, I could simply have both a Twitter and a TikTok, but this seems to concede some entertainment void.

Downloading TikTok is an implicit indication that Twitter is failing to meet my need for viral memes and public shaming and I simply refuse to admit this. Twitter is the best social media available, and the

Page 15

BronxArtSpace

By SARA TSUGRANIS STAFF WRITER

nuance of entertainment it provides is so profound that I am willing to endure social shaming for my TikTok illiteracy.

The first point of comparison between Twitter and TikTok that will help render the superiority of the former apparent is the ease with which users go viral. There is a trend on TikTok in which content creators film videos of random actions and dub an audio clip over it that reads “Things on TikTok go viral for the dumbest reasons. Look that was just a thousand views.”

The duplication of this soundbite has enabled videos such as someone ironing a $20 bill or dunking their head underwater to end up on users #foryoupage. Twitter, on the other hand, has no fast fix to fame. While there are Twitter trends such as those on TikTok, these usually provide content creators with a format of a joke, not the joke itself.

Tweets that garner thousands of likes or retweets must be genuinely comical or insightful or adapt a Twitter trend in a nuanced way. Viral tweets are always laugh out loud funny or painfully relatable in a way

that forces you to share them instantly with friends.

Another thing that sets Twitter apart from other social media platforms is its ability to hide news in entertainment, like your mom buying the orange juice that is half blended vegetables.

While much of Twitter is mindless quips about the struggles of being a teenager or absurd anecdotes regarding tweeters’ love lives, the platform can also help keep users informed.

Twitter users include every 2020 Democratic candidate, our president (unfortunately), Greta Thunberg and Nancy Pelosi, among others.

I can assure you not a single one of these people is mirroring Charli D’Amelio on TikTok. So while users are carelessly scrolling through Twitter in the Starbucks line, they can also accidently participate in our democracy, learn what candidates believe and adjust their support accordingly.

If you need any more convincing, just think about this: why do people tweet TikToks but no one TikToks tweets?

COURTESY OF FLICKR

Twitter combines comedy and news, making it one of the best social medias.

The latest exhibit at BronxArtSpace, “Realism, Reality and Surreality,” integrates reality and imagination through the works of five artists who each display their unique versions of reality. I had the opportunity to speak with the curator, Sabine Schumacher, who walked me through how the exhibit interacts as a whole.

The exhibit begins with Bronxbased artist John Ahearn’s sculptures.

Ahearn picks neighbors who stand out to him to portray in his art. One woman, Rose, caught his eye while she was holding a sculpture of Popeye that she made.

“He was fascinated this woman built her own Popeye,” Schumacher said. “She is an artist too.”

The sculpture Ahearn made of Rose holds the Popeye that she created. Next to Rose is a sculpture of Devon Rodriguez by John Ahearn.

Rodriguez has benefited from BronxArtSpace, which acts as a nonprofit “advancing local arts education and opportunities,” as its website explains. “Devon was an intern here at 17, and when he was sitting here, he was drawing,” Schumacher said.

Now at age 23, Rodriguez’s incredibly realistic oil paintings are displayed at BronxArtSpace. Rodriguez and Ahearn became collaborators, and Schumacher wanted to present this in the presentation of the sculpture of Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s paintings, one depicting Ahearn, are parallel to Ahearn’s sculptures.

“I think it’s better that these walls talk to each other,” Schumacher said.

Besides the heartwarming connection between the two artists depicted, Rodriguez’s paintings hold great emotional depth.

“I see how young fellows react, especially to ‘Jonathan.’ They don’t

see themselves portrayed like that very often,” Schumacher said. “It is important we see young men of color in paintings.” These paintings may inspire the next Devon Rodriguez.

Schumacher describes Sarah Sagarin as the “real surrealist” in the room.

She had her eyes closed when painting “Strange Relations” and “Lost and Found.” Sagarin presents her reality and lets viewers see what they think.

Carla Rae Johnson presents recognizable images of reality altered to explore alternate realities. Her work needs a historical background to envision the different dimensions.

For example, “Frida Kahlo meets Franz Kafka” prompts the viewer to imagine how a meeting between the famed artist and novelist would go.

Johnson kickstarts the imagination by seamlessly connecting different prominent figures in the sculpture “Georgia O’Keefe meets Galileo Galilei.”

Jun Cheng Liu’s work equally presents reality and imagination.

“Moonlight Monologue” looks like disconnected floating structures. It is a presentation of Mandarin Chinese characters in the third dimension.

While the structures present an alternate reality, Liu’s paintings confuse your present reality. Schumacher had to tell me multiple times that the painted envelope in “Durer’s Hands” was a painted envelope, because it looks so lifelike.

BronxArtSpace is an upscale art gallery that is a part of the community surrounding it, aiming to serve and uphold it. An upscale gallery is not usually thought of as a community staple, but through this exhibit and its ongoing work, BronxArtSpace makes a somewhat surreal idea into reality.

Be sure to see “Realism, Reality and Surreality” before it closes Feb. 29, 2020.

The Ram Crossword: Black History Month 1. First black female billionaire 6. Kind of store 10. Web address starter 14. Union general 15. Radiance 16. Long time 17. The ___ __ Good Feelings 18. Civil rights leader last name 19. “__ __ your disposal” 20. Baseball barrier breaker of 1947 22. D&D, and others 24. Break bread 25. Certain fishermen

28. Some school fundraisers 32. Traditional Hawaiian gar land 33. Earring style 35. Civil rights leader who also went by el-Hajj Malik elShabazz: 2 wds.

37. Looks embarassed 39. Hair holder 40. Treatment for a bruise 41. Supreme Court’s first Afri can-American justice 43. Pituitary hormone 44. Units of weight; used in Greece, Turkey and Egypt 45. No small favor

COURTESY OF TWITTER

ANSWERS TO ISSUE 3

49. Surfing mecca 51. Suffix after north or south 52. “__ __ sure you know...”

53. Poet Hughes 58. Tubular pasta 60. Beginner, slangily 62. Prefix for an image 63. Furniture brand 64. Pac-12 team 65. Some feds 66. Come together 67. Type of rug 68. Home Down 1.Biblical measure 2. Spanish “but” 3. Hungarian river 4. Where to go for insurance info in Phoenix, abbr.

5. Playboy founder 6. Word with North or South 7. Soil 8. Vase 9. Series of bloopers 10. Katherine of “Grey’s Anatomy” 11. “Magnum, P.I.” actor 12. Dynamite relative 13. Attention-getting sound 21. Witnessed 23. Joe of “Home Alone” 26. Postpone

ANSWERS IN ISSUE 5

Across

CREATED BY KEVIN DINEEN

27. Middle school grade 28. Connects systematically 29. King Kong and kin 30. Refine, as ore 31. “2001” computer 33. Thing to say on camera 34. Port city of Japan 36. Edible Andean tubers 38. Abu-_____ 39. Day-___ (fluorescent paint) 42. Graduate 46. Brewing need

47. Ornithine, abbr.

48. Chest pain 50. NBA Hall of Famer Thomas 53. 1970’s hit by The Kinks 54. Strikebreaker 55. Spanish bull 56. An outdated way to listen to music 57. Schnozz 58. Nickelodeon cartoon, “In vader ___” 59. Presidential nickname 61. Scottish interjection

CULTURE Junior RA Aids In Freshman Transition

Page 16

February 12, 2020

Who’s That Kid?| It’s Nicholas Zaromatidis GSB ‘21!

By KELLY CHRIST OPINION EDITOR

The transition to college is never easy. Nicholas (Zazo) Zaromatidis, GSB ’21, hopes to make it a bit easier.

Known affectionately as RA Nicky Z, he is a resident assistant (RA) at Fordham’s Alumni Court South (ACS) Residence hall, which houses almost 300 freshmen.

“There’s a certain satisfaction in being able to help a confused freshman, whether it’s daily things like

helping them find buildings on campus to making sure they are physically and emotionally secure in their new environment,” he said.

He began his time as an RA in ACS during his sophomore year, and continued the position in his junior year. Helping freshmen residents with their transition into college is one of his biggest focuses.

“Not everybody has an easy transition to college, and I am fortunate enough to live close to Fordham,” he said. “It’s not that big of a change in my life, but for some it’s across sev-

COURTESY OF NICHOLAS ZAROMATIDIS/ THE FORDHAM RAM

Nicholas Zaromatidis, GSB `21 has been an RA since his sophomore year.

eral states, or across the country, or even across the world. Helping them with this transition is very rewarding to me.”

Having grown up on Long Island, Fordham provided Zaromatidis the unique opportunity to experience college life to its fullest while still giving the opportunity to go home when he wants to.

“It’s under an hour drive from home. I wanted to be able to have that city feeling,” he said. “I was always commuting into the city with friends in high school, so this was a benefit I wanted. I also wanted the ability to go home, which I am able to do.”

Perhaps one of the reasons Zaromatidis is so effective in helping his residents navigate the challenges of college is his own experience in crafting a path at Fordham.

When he began his freshman year, Zaromatidis was part of the Honors Program at Fordham College at Rose Hill. However, he remained conflicted about what major would suit him best.

“I was torn between majoring in a business field or doing political science,” he explained. “I initially picked Rose Hill to become an International Political Economy (IPE) major.”

While still in Fordham College at Rose Hill, Zaromatidis hoped to take advantage of Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business as well.

“Though I didn’t want to major in business at first, I always wanted to at least minor in it,” he said. “Having Gabelli gave me the opportunity to pursue it further if I wanted to.”

He decided to transfer to the

Gabelli School of Business after his freshman year, declaring a major in accounting.

“I picked a major in accounting because I took a class in it in high school and liked the topic,” he explained. “It made sense to me. I waited until I took the first accounting course in Gabelli before I declared.

I enjoyed it and decided to continue pursuing it.”

In addition to the coursework, Zaromatidis cites Gabelli as providing the foundation for the opportunities he has had in the business world thus far. In the summer of 2019, he completed an internship with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Manhattan.

“The internship was a great introduction to accounting because I was able to explore different lines of service,” he said. “It showed how many of the concepts I learned in class are brought into the real-world space.”

In the summer of 2020, he will be continuing with PwC with a more client-focused internship in the tax line of service.

Zaromatidis believes that many of the values Fordham espouses are what make the community so special.

“Fordham’s emphasis on cura personalis, caring for the whole person, highlights that education does not stop when class is dismissed,” he said. “We are able to see that through the RA position. We are constantly educating our residents to be safe and make smart choices while providing them with tools to succeed.”

Being an RA for the past year and a half has taught Zaromatidis much

about Fordham as a whole. In particular, he has appreciated the incorporation of Fordham’s resources in his residence hall.

“Fordham has a multitude of resources — from a career perspective, a mental or physical health perspective and most of all from a learning perspective,” he said. “There are many departments that are eager to work with RAs to incorporate their information into residence halls.

This information allows me to better serve my residents, as I am more connected with these resources.”

As he continues to work in ACS, he hopes to work with Fordham’s resources to continue serving his freshmen residents. In addition, he holds his fellow staff members in high regard as well.

“There are nine of us on staff, and I think that is a strong number because it is not too big or too small,” he said.

“It is easy for us to build friendships with other staff members.”

The bonds between his staff often allow it to work more cohesively in creating programs and providing other opportunities for its residents.

With the second semester of the academic year just starting to kick up, Zaromatidis and his fellow RAs hope to continue their work in providing guidance and assistance to each and every resident.

As he enters his senior year, Zaromatidis plans to continue to take advantage of the many opportunities that Fordham has awarded him.

And as his residents work through the end of their freshman year, he will continue to provide meaningful guidance along the way.

“The Lodge” Gets Left Out In The Cold

By MATT DILLON STAFF WRITER

One of the surprising turnarounds of the last decade was the horror genre’s redemption. Films like “Get Out” and “It Follows” went a long way in rehabilitating the genre for general audiences. While it’s nice to see that horror is again engaging complex social and political issues, it’s still hard to make a good movie.

“The Lodge” is a product of this horror redemption, trying to tackle difficult subjects like religion and suicide in a mature way. Unfortunately, none of it comes together properly.

“The Lodge” gets painfully close to being a memorable, well executed horror movie. Gracie (Riley Keough), the survivor of a Christian cult’s mass suicide, ends up stranded in her fiancé’s winter vacation home, along with his two children.

Their strained relationship is further tested by recent and more well-established traumas. Increasingly strange events drive things to a breaking point, especially as their trials start to get spiritual.

Even as American cinema gravitates towards longer running times, the “slow burn” approach to storytelling is getting rarer. As a result, it feels almost nostalgic for “The Lodge” to drag out every second of its hour and 48 minute running time.

Unfortunately, the film also lacks

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

“The Lodge” stars Riley Keough as Gracie, the survivor of a Christian cult who begins to experince strange events.

subtlety. Deeply flawed but uncomplicated characters populate a world made of intentionally dated and foreboding sets. The plot developments are similarly raw and abrupt, to the point that “The Lodge” often ends up as a horror-tinged dark comedy, even if it’s meant to be deadly serious.

The camerawork follows similar conventions, best shown by the reliance on zoom in shots. It’s not only distracting but unnecessary. The unending sense of claustrophobia is one of the few things “The Lodge” has in its favor.

However, the camera drifts in and out and detracts from that feeling.

By contrast, the fixed camera angles

and dark lighting are competently used, turning tame scares into something more chilling.

Admittedly the camerawork is one of the stronger aspects of the film, especially when compared to the imagery. The seemingly endless winter storms and haunting shots of creaky houses work well, but the glut of gothic Christian symbolism is poorly handled. That’s partially why the the film’s handling of traumatic religious upbringings fails, aside from weak scripting.

The film definitely shows that faith affects people even after they turn away from it, but it fails to offer anything insightful past this assertion.

The religious symbolism in “The

Lodge” is offset by another heavyhanded motif. The plot is regularly interrupted by cutaways to disturbing, prophetic visions of a doll house.

These segments disrupt the flow, even if they play into the film’s oppressive atmosphere. In the dollhouse’s defense, it at least mirrors the source of the horror: how seemingly subjective reality is for the characters as well as the viewer.

If nothing else, “The Lodge” has strong audio design. Even mundane noises are heightened to be scarier than whatever is on screen. Actions like packing luggage and making breakfast are turned into harrowing experiences.

The long, uncomfortable silences

that dominate the film also build tension. Unfortunately, the soundtrack lacks that subtlety, as it goes for a mix of clashing styles with some more questionable religious allusions.

In terms of the writing, the characters are pitiable but not particularly likable. Poor performances from the actors only make this worse. Gracie, who is at once the protagonist and antagonist, is the exception. Keough convincingly portrays her as a victim of circumstance, both in the past and the present.

Her reactions to inhumane circumstances feel convincing, no matter how exaggerated they might be.

Even at her lowest, Gracie is strangely sympathetic, bringing judgement to a world that just won’t leave her alone.

Unfortunately, I suspect “The Lodge” intended for things to be a little more complicated than that.

From what I can tell, the film wants to be a story about deeply hurt people too young and vulnerable to understand their actions. Instead, “The Lodge” comes off as a perverse revenge narrative, in which Gracie’s horrible acts almost feel justified.

You can blame that on unsympathetic characters, absurd scenarios and the film as a whole. “The Lodge” brings more to the table than most in the horror genre but sends the wrong messages. At the very least, I do want to see Riley Keough in a better thriller.

CULTURE Margot Robbie Rescues “Birds of Prey”

Page 17

February 12, 2020

By GREG MYSOGLAND STAFF WRITER

Nearly four years after her scenestealing debut in “Suicide Squad,” Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn returns, along with a new, all-female, superhero team. The perfect antidote to the disturbing success of Todd Phillip’s vile “Joker,” “Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” uses Harley’s separation from her abusive ex to center a solid film about female empowerment and unity. Despite some structural issues, “Birds of Prey” impresses thanks to a committed cast, especially Robbie, and some creative, hard-hitting action.

The film starts with Harley and Joker already broken up, so thankfully the viewer is spared from a return appearance by Jared Leto. Harley spends a little while wallowing in her own sadness before she makes a particularly destructive demonstration that she’s done with the Clown Prince of Crime for good.

Unfortunately, this also serves as a signal to all her criminal rivals and victims that she’s no longer under Joker’s protection, and she’s quickly overwhelmed by the multitude of people gunning for her, the most dangerous of which is Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), a flamboyant and temperamental crime lord also known as Black Mask.

After making a bargain with Roman to save her own skin, Harley finds herself caught up in a complicated caper through which she crosses paths with the other members of

the titular DC Comics super-team, Dinah Lance/Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Helena Bertinelli/ Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) and Gotham City Police Detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez).

It’s definitely good, but “Birds of Prey” falls short of being a great movie because of its slow pace and round about storytelling. Writer Christina Hodson, who seems set to become one of the new main architects of Warner Brothers’ DC Extended Universe, given that she’s currently penning scripts based on Batgirl and the Flash, draws considerable inspiration both from “Deadpool” and from the crime films of Quentin Tarantino, particularly “Pulp Fiction.”

Like those films, Hodson’s script jumps around in time a lot, but the non-linear structure feels more like an empty gesture of homage than a necessary storytelling tool. It actually robs the film of a lot of momentum.

The film is more plot-driven than expected, so there’s a considerable amount of groundwork to be laid as the web of relationships connecting the characters is built, but this could just as easily have been done in a straightforward, A to Z fashion.

Instead, the film will often get to a point of exhilaration or surprise before having to hit pause to explain how it did so. The labyrinthine plot also means that the heroines don’t get into the same room together until the film’s climax. Given how much fun it is when they do get to interact and fight together, this is a mistake.

The plot is too winding for its

own good, but the characters and action mean “Birds of Prey” is still well worth seeing. Other than Montoya and Harley herself, the Birds bear little resemblance to their comic counterparts, but this is only really a problem in regard to Cassandra.

Basco does a fine job, but this Cassandra is so radically different from the source material that one wonders why Hodson wouldn’t just create a new character.

The rest of the reinventions thankfully work much better. SmollettBell puts her own formidable stamp on Canary, and Winstead draws some surprising laughs by contrasting Huntress’ murderous rage with her lack of social skills. Perez is the film’s one piece of true-to-the-comic casting, replicating Montoya’s gruff attitude and gritty determination directly from the page, and McGregor is clearly having the time of his life as the tantrum-prone, delightfully diabolical Roman.

However, despite all this, it’s still Robbie’s show through and through.

Her passion for the character shines, and she perfectly handles all of the difficult elements of playing Harley — from the deliberately cheesy Brooklyn accent to walking the line between gleeful and sadistic insanity with impressive grace. But there’s also a lot going on beneath all the jokes and psychotic grins.

Harley’s arc in the film is about discovering her own strength and agency, and Robbie subtly runs her through an emotional gauntlet of sadness, confusion, resilience, compassion and elation. That last one

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Margot Robbie stars as Harley Quin in the women-packed “Birds of Prey.”

especially comes out in the film’s gloriously insane action sequences, which is where Director Cathy Yan shines.

Yan’s camera glides around the sets with a fluid motion that captures the technical difficulty of the innovative choreography, which in turn makes great use of Harley and company’s odd choices in weapons.

There’s a fight scene with a baseball bat midway through that’s one of the most purely exhilarating and fun movie moments I’ve seen in months.

The first of three major superhero blockbusters to be released this year helmed by and focusing exclusively on women, “Birds of Prey” breaks new ground by viewing a familiar genre, the adrenaline-and bloodsoaked, vengeance-seeking action thriller, through a female lens.

It’s an important step in cinematic representation that also manages to be solidly entertaining despite some script issues, thanks to its considerable style and the power of its leading lady.

Green Day’s “Father of All...” Fumbles

By NOAH OSBORNE STAFF WRITER

I thought that Green Day was going to continue the momentum of their “Revolution Radio” album heading into the new decade. However, the difference between what I expected versus what I actually received was disappointing. Green Day’s newest outing left me ambivalent.

The maxim that one should never judge a book by its cover is hard to follow. With “Father of All…” Green Day lazily recycled the album cover from “American Idiot,” sloppily added a stripped down version of their logo and added a disorienting unicorn that looks like it was drawn by a preschooler. My first impression was that Green Day got lazy with the album, and it shows with the quality of their songs.

Clocking in at approximately 26 minutes, the punk veterans do nothing to contribute to the legacy they have built from the ’90s into the 2000s and the new decade. Almost every song concludes at about two or three minutes, enough time to make some listeners beg for a track to be over while leaving others wanting more.

“Father of All…” opens with a track named after the album.

Upon listening to the song, it became apparent that this would

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Green Day’s latest album “Father of All...” which was released on Feb. 7 takes a variety of mildly successful risks

not be the Green Day album fans have become accustomed to, but rather something new. Green Day takes a risk here with distorted vocals and almost pop-like tunes which would make anyone want to dance in a frenzy. The sound is almost classic, and it works here for Green Day, as they execute the sound well. It was a risk for the band, and it paid dividends because it is catchy.

However, not all risks on this album result in rewards. “Fire, Ready, Aim” sounds sloppily constructed, as the riffs are uninspired, uncoordinated and messy.

Green Day is known for sounding messy, but this form of messy lacks the energy it is known for.

What truly ruined this song

for me were the cringe inducing, autotuned background vocals which make lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong sound like a squeakyvoiced teenager. Green Day is still a young band, and even at 47, Armstrong hasn’t aged a bit.

However, here and in songs like “Meet Me on The Roof” and “Graffitia,” it comes across as if Green Day is trying to be young.

Anyone who listens to Green Day should know that this isn’t something the band consciously needs to endeavor, as they already succeed at sounding timeless. Between the exasperating background vocals, lethargic playing on songs like “Junkies on a High,” and overall teen pop sound, Green Day sounds less

like a band of 21st century rebels, and more like music industry sell-outs.

However, things get complicated, because the album has moments where it does shine. What is disappointing is how those moments seem fleeting. Arguably the best song on the album is “Sugar Youth.”

Formulaically, it has everything that made Green Day appealing to its fanbase: rapid-fire riffs, thundering drums and Armstrong proclaiming, “I don’t wanna be a Romeo.” It sounds aggressive and messy with the energy Green Day is known for, and maybe even anti-hero-esque.

They sound like rebels, and that is where the band excels.

They are in their element when they play with this style, and it will make listeners want to jump for joy to see that Green Day has not lost that energy.

The track “I Was a Teenage Teenager” excels in the same caliber, as what starts off with a disconcerting bass riff evolves into string-tearing shredding by Armstong and Mike Dirnt. The song sounds like something right out of “American Idiot,” and fans are sure to love it. Tracks “Oh Yeah!” and “Stab You in the Heart” are an especially interesting dichotomy of sounds.

“Oh Yeah!” embraces the sound of modern rock/alternative with effective results, while “Stab You in The Heart” takes a page out of the rock n’ roll playbook of the ’60s with cheesy guitar riffs galore. Nevertheless, it is catchy and ultimately fun to listen to.

In sum, Green Day fumbles with maintaining their fidelity and trying something new. Some of their risks benefit the album, but not enough of them benefit their legacy as a band.

However, one thing is clear: Green Day has not lost the energy of what makes them so fun to listen to. After listening to “Father of All…” it’s unclear where the band plans to go from here. Let’s just hope they don’t make like the ninth track on their album and “Take the Money and Crawl.”

Page 18

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February 12, 2020

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February 12, 2020

Page 19

Beyond the Scorebard: Saints Play Ball with Catholic Church

By ANDREW POSADAS MANAGING EDITOR

New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson made her first public statement Monday evening to address her relationship with New Orleans’ Roman Catholic Church Archdiocese, currently in the midst of a sexual abuse lawsuit. Benson shared her deepest sympathies with the victims, while adding she will “remain repulsed by the actions of past clergy in this abuse scandal.”

However, what I found most intriguing about Benson’s statement is how she did not apologize for the Saints involvement with the Archdiocese.

In the lengthy statement, Benson explained, “We are proud of the role we played and yes, in hindsight, we would help again to assist the Archdiocese in its ability to publish the list with the hope of taking this step to heal the community. In addition, we already turned over every email to the court and plaintiff attorneys.”

For context, Benson and Saints team executives are being implicated with assisting the Archdiocese in its public relations response to this recent sexual abuse crisis. In particular, the Saints are under suspicion of helping shape the list of credibly accused

clergy members, which the aforementioned attorneys allege has been undercounted. Initially, the New Orleans Archdiocese’s list consisted of 57 credibly accused clergy members. That list would increase by six, and according to the Associated Press, analysis suggests the list may have underestimated the actual number of those accused by “at least 20.”

The plaintiffs’ attorneys’ allegations do not stop there. They also claim Saints team executives supported the Archdiocese’s “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes” to ensure the public stays unaware of any criminal behavior.

Furthermore, the AP reports attorneys have concluded there are hundreds of confidential emails revealing the Saints involvement was more than just minimal.

An email from late 2018 reportedly refers to Saints Senior Vice President of Communications Greg Bensel. Bensel was apparently joining in on a discussion concerning “removing priests from the pedophile list” alongside unnamed third parties.

In all of their public statements, the Saints have continually stated that their objective was to offer input on working with the media.

As for Bensel, his advice on the matter was intended to be “direct, open and fully transparent,” ac-

cording to the franchise. A court hearing is set later this month to determine if these specific emails will be made open to the public.

Now, whether the Saints ultimately get punished by the National Football League (NFL) or in a court of law is inconsequential. What should trouble everyone, including and especially Saint fans, is the lack of remorse displayed in Benson’s statement.

She did not even express any regret for coming to the Archdioceses’ aid in the first place.

Her public relations team had to have known that associating themselves with the church amid a sexual abuse crisis would only garner negative attention among the public eye.

But, as Benson put it, her and late husband Tom Benson have “supported the Catholic Church and this Archdiocese both financially and spiritually for decades,” as though this is justification for the team’s actions.

While Benson vehemently proclaimed her financial contributions have never gone to helping the Catholic Church pay settlements, how does she really know that to be factual?

Unless the Catholic Church can provide proof of where Benson’s money has gone to benefit the Archdiocese, one can only

Women’s Tennis Closes Out the Weekend at .500

By GIGI SPEER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Coming fresh off a win against Quinnipiac University, Fordham Women’s Tennis was looking to keep the streak going as t headed up to West Point.

On Friday, despite falling early, the squad made a comeback to secure a win against Stony Brook University 4-3.

Led by junior Arina Taluyenko in the first singles spot, the Rams took four out of six singles matches. In the second spot, freshman Weronika Pociej took the lead early, winning 6-4, 6-1, then sophomores Nicole Li and Genevieve Quenville followed with victories at fourth and fifth, respectively.

Taluyenko and Pociej were also successful as a duo, winning first doubles 6-4.

On Sunday, the team’s streak came to a close as it fell to the hosts, Army University. With the exception of the top match not finishing, Army swept doubles.

In singles, Taluyenko proved too

much for Army’s number one, winning 6-1, 6-3, while Pociej reigned supreme in the second spot, taking it 7-5, 6-3.

Freshman Avery Aude managed to secure the third singles win to split the matches with the

hosts, winning her match 6-3, 6-3. On Wednesday, Fordham will look to take back its winning streak, traveling to Temple University in Philadelphia, before hosting Marshall University on Sunday, Feb 16.

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The Saints deserve to be put under the microscope for their behavior.

speculate as to what was done with Benson’s generous donations throughout the decades.

Consider if this situation occurred during the widespread sexual abuse scandal in the early 2000s, when more than 500 victims filed abuse claims against the Boston Catholic clergy.

Now, imagine if the Boston Celtics or the New England Patriots, two of the most popular and prestigious franchises, had gotten involved with advising public relations damage control.

There would have undoubtedly been huge media coverage surrounding either franchise for its potential involvement. One could

argue that the number of victims in Boston compared to those in New Orleans would have made for more media attention. While there is validity to that notion, my follow-up question must be: why does it matter how many victims are affected in discerning what warrants extensive coverage on an issue so serious?

In many football-centric cities and smaller towns, football and religion complement each other perfectly. Some make it a ritual to attend mass in the morning and watch games all afternoon. Unfortunately, even the best combinations can result into disappointing outcomes.

Men’s Tennis Dominates UConn

By JIMMY SULLIVAN SPORTS EDITOR

The Fordham men’s tennis team earned a road victory on Saturday afternoon with a 6-1 win over the University of Connecticut.

Believe it or not, things started inauspiciously for the Rams on Saturday. After a hard-fought start to the match, the home Huskies took the doubles point despite an impressive victory by the combination of senior Finn Kemper and junior Alex Makatsaria. However, when junior Max Green and sophomore Jofre Segarra dropped their doubles match, UConn earned the first points of the day.

Despite early appearances, it was the last concession Fordham made that day.

The Rams were able to take every singles match for the rest of the afternoon and cruise to a 6-1 victory for the team’s second win of the season. Senior Fabian Mau-

ritzson got the singles matches started with a Fordham victory, and Green’s subsequent match proved to be a turning point on the afternoon.

He took down UConn’s John Holtmann in a third-set tiebreak to earn the victory and propel Fordham to a lead it would not relinquish. In the next four matches, juniors Lutwin de Macar and Alex Makatsaria, along with Kemper and senior Steven Duka, all earned victories. Duka, in fact, earned his first victory of the season on Saturday.

With the win, Fordham is now on a two-game winning streak, with a 3-2 record on the season.

The Rams will take some time off after Saturday’s win, as the squad does not compete until Feb. 22 at Siena College. All during a nearly two-month road trip for the Rams, as the team played its last home match on Jan. 25 and will not return home again until March 15.

Taluyenko paced the Rams in a weekend of mixed results.

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The Rams look to extend their winning ways against Siena.

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Page 20

February 12, 2020

The XFL’s Rebirth: Can Vince McMahon’s Endeavor Succeed?

By STEPHEN LEBITSCH STAFF WRITER

It was back in 2001 that wrestling business mogul Vince McMahon started his own American football league with the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and NBC known as the XFL. McMahon and his partners started the XFL to compete with the National Football League (NFL), which has been the dominant professional league of American football since its conception, and to fill the void in the calendar between February and August when the NFL was in its offseason.

Consisting of eight teams from cities that either have or once had an NFL franchise, the league brought various rule modifications to the game meant to spike the intensity and speed from that of the NFL. However, the game of football itself was not the only thing on the minds of McMahon and company.

What made the XFL different was its emphasis on on-air innovations and entertainment tactics similar to those used in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). This would become the league’s ultimate downfall, as viewers — some traditional football fans — did not like all the extra wrestling-based characteristics.

Despite having an opening week with ratings that rendered serious attention within the sports media market, the original XFL ceased to exist after its inaugural season.

Millions of dollars were practically burnt through the endeavor, and McMahon even earned an ESPN 30-for-30 on his failure.

This week, almost 20 years after the original, the XFL made its return to the professional sports stage. Reborn with many of the same structural characteristics as before, but excluding the wrestling-like entertainment features, the league looks to learn from its past mistakes and land its niche in

the professional sports calendar.

Other leagues, like the Alliance of American Football, have also seen their efforts to broaden the game of professional football fail, so McMahon is determined this time to make his idea work.

The ultimate question to be asked as viewers tune in for the first time is: “Will the XFL work this time?” The truth is that the answer is up in the air.

As with the original XFL, the idea and purpose of the league are still well-suited. Other than the draft in April and training camps in July, football fans loathe the hiatus from NFL football post-Super Bowl. Having a different league to pick up some of the calendar vacancy means more football Sundays throughout the entire year.

Another positive thing the XFL did for its rebirth was bring in higher level talent for their teams, particularly players and coaches with NFL experience who are not currently on a roster. Having names like Lance Dunbar, Rashad Ross and Kevin Gilbride that football fans recognize could lead to increased viewership and consumption of the league. It also provides these men with an avenue to showcase their skills and get back onto an NFL roster.

There are some well-known names surrounding the XFL outside of the teams themselves, with Dean Blandino running the officiating operations and NFL on FOX’s own Curt Menefee doing some work in the broadcast booth.

Rule modifications are where the XFL could see some backlash and run into trouble with popularity. The XFL is breaking football barriers with their special rules for parts of the game such as kickoffs, punts, extra points, forward passes and overtime. However, doing so could impact the fans’ ability to watch and understand the game.

On kickoffs, the kicker will kick from his team’s 30-yard line while blockers from both teams will wait

at the receiving team’s 35- and 30yard lines. Neither side of blockers can move until the ball is touched by the receiver or in play for a few seconds.

After scoring a touchdown, there are three options for the scoring team to take instead of the traditional one-point kick or twopoint conversion. The team will either take the ball from the two, five or 10 yard mark and attempt a score in the endzone for one, two or three points, respectively. Defensively, a turnover and score by the other team would match the attempt in added points.

Overtime specifications are where the game’s rules could get away from most people. The XFL’s overtime periods will be decided by a five-round two-point conversion shootout between the teams.

It would be similar to a penalty kick shootout in soccer. There are various rules for forced turnovers and penalties during that portion of the contest.

The complete XFL season is 10 weeks long with a two-week postseason to follow.

The game of football has always been played by the same rules even before the NFL’s conception and the Super Bowl era. As a result, fans have become used to these rules and may be opposed to some of the complicated rules of the XFL. Fewer fans watching equates to declining ratings, which equates to losing revenue and all that comes with it.

If the XFL bewilders fans with its complicated rules, it might win some of them over with its stance on controversies within the game.

They strongly advise against political gestures by players during league games such as kneeling during the National Anthem.

While there are not rules strictly forbidding such gestures, the XFL wants to take priority in avoiding issues that have been occurring in the NFL. The fans could go either way, so

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Will the XFL be more successful than it was in 2001, when it failed after just one season?

McMahon and the XFL must find ways to grow support and enthusiasm for the league if it is to be a success this time around. There is that famous expression which states “what is old is new again,” and we certainly find that exemplified in the rebirth of the XFL. Back in 2017, in the ESPN documentary about the original XFL, McMahon spoke about reviving the league and making necessary changes to make it popular in the current age. A year later, he sold millions in stock from his wrestling monopoly to fund Alpha Entertainment, the XFL’s parent company. He also garnered interest from former NFL players, coaches and media giants to become a part and leverage the reach of the league.

McMahon and the XFL are once again set to attack the NFL in American professional football,

but they must light the proverbial fuse.

The NFL has long been the dominant professional league in football and is only becoming stronger and more internationally popular by the season. Like other pro sports, a major task will be getting the younger generations to gravitate toward the league. They are the future long-term consumers of the product and will have a massive impact on its popularity growth.

If the XFL gets the younger generations to jump on board, support the league brand, consume merchandise and become fans, other generations will follow and do the same.

It is do or eternally die this time for the XFL, bringing the possibility of McMahon learning the hard lesson of “stick to your day job.”

Swimming Concludes 2019-20 Season

By JACK ROCHE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

When the calendar reaches February, anyone following the swim and dive team has their eyes set on the Atlantic 10 Championship tournament, hosted in Geneva, Ohio.

However, much closer to our home in the Bronx, the Fordham Rams competed in the NYU Invitational this weekend.

“We hopped on the Metro-North to Grand Central, took the 4 train down to Union, and the pool is right outside of the station.”

These are the words of A.J. Frakes, a sophomore from Phoenix, Arizona, who competed at the nearby NYU complex this weekend. He would claim the top spot in the 100 freestyle in 47.13 seconds, the only event he swam in.

“Not every kid gets to compete at the A-10 tournament,” Frakes said.

“Coach uses this meet for the kids that don’t travel to the tournament to get their last swims in for the season.”

While there was no team scoring, the Rams certainly boasted individual highlights on top of Frakes’ perfor-

mance. Sophomore Doug Grisbaum claimed first in the 500 freestyle in 4:47.77. Freshman Wade Meaders had a handful of second-place finishes, doing so in the 200 backstroke (1:58.63), 200 freestyle (1:45.51) and 100 backstroke (53.88) events.

The women also demonstrated their capabilities, headlined by Elizabeth Long, a freshman from Vernon Hill, Illinois, as she placed first in the 100 breaststroke (1:08.08). Freshman duo Courtney Cail and Eva Caplan followed suit, placing second (1:08.53) and third (1:08.78), respectively, behind Long in the same event.

Looking ahead, the Rams travel to Ohio to contend in the A-10 Championship tournament, spanning from Wednesday, Feb. 19 to Saturday, Feb. 22.

For those who competed at NYU, their season has come to a halt. However, with the vast majority of these swimmers being underclassmen, there is much more to come. A.J. Frakes, just in his sophomore year, put it perfectly.

“At this point, you just reset and start focusing on next year.”

SPORTS

February 12, 2020

Page 21

Student-Athlete Column: How We Look at Athletes

By KALEY BELL

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I pay a lot of attention to professional athletics. Maybe it’s because it’s the culture that we live in. Maybe it’s because it’s how we bond in my house, or maybe it’s because I’m an athlete myself. I would say that professional athletics get my heart racing just as quickly as my own races do. Professional athletes show off their talent every day in a way that never disappoints, even if they don’t get the result that they hope for.

The whole world was shocked by the sudden death of Kobe Bryant, an athlete who changed the world with his performance on the court and showed how hard work can change the trajectory of your life.

Many people looked up to Kobe, not just because he was a good basketball player, but because of his legendary work ethic. He showed athletes all around the world that talent, diligence and perseverance can make the impossible possible.

There are many athletes now who say that Kobe was their inspiration for working hard in their sport. Lakers player Kyle Kuzma recently said in an Instagram post, “I grew up trying to be like you.”

Kuzma and other players modeled their practice style after Kobe’s, hoping to be great just as he was.

Kobe wanted to be something great, and he did that with a dedication to his craft that few could match.

I remember watching Usain Bolt run. Since I am Jamaican, my

mother made sure that I watched him and the rest of the Jamaican athletes dominate in the 2012 Olympics.

During this time, there were a lot of advertisements on what Bolt would eat before he ran, and McDonald’s ran a commercial saying that Bolt would eat an enormous amount of Chicken McNuggets before a competition. I never believed it, but my brother did, so he would always say that, in addition to training, he needed to eat McDonald’s so he could beat Bolt and become the world’s next fastest man.

My brother believed that he needed to model his eating habits just like Bolt’s so that he could become just like him. His idolization of Bolt was understandable and welcomed in a house that celebrated every Jamaican win.

In the same way, Kuzma’s idolization of Kobe is welcomed, as he was a man who had many successes in his field, a feat that most of us can only dream of achieving.

He won two Olympic gold medals, five NBA Championship Rings and an MVP award, just to name a few.

Kobe did not disappoint. Neither did Bolt: eight Olympic gold medals, eleven World Championships, two world records and countless chicken nuggets.

During Black History Month, there are many black athletes that we can look up to who have shaped the way athletes have upped their game. Kobe and Bolt are just two names that have found ways to influence sports forever.

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Usain Bolt and the late Kobe Bryant are just two examples of hard-working athletes.

By JIMMY SULLIVAN SPORTS EDITOR

At 4:08 p.m. on Saturday, my weekend got a little more interesting.

For some background: I traveled with the Fordham women’s basketball team to broadcast its 1 p.m. game against Massachusetts University. After a nail-biting finish that saw Fordham come out on top, we were on our way back home on our Academy bus (shoutout to Alex, who is the best bus driver in America).

Anyway, I was tiredly and halfheartedly scrolling through my phone when I saw a tweet from President Trump. It only came up on my timeline because a couple of my friends liked it, and I assumed it had to do with a fake impeachment or a jab at the media. Instead, it read the following: “Pete Rose played Major League Baseball for 24 seasons, from 19631986, and had more hits, 4,256, than any other player (by a wide margin).

He gambled, but only on his own team winning, and paid a decades long price. GET PETE ROSE INTO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME. It’s Time!”

Putting aside the obvious grammatical errors and bizarre sentence structure so common in all of his tweets, the president has finally offered something we should all be able to agree on.

In case you are unfamiliar, Rose, the former Reds great, was banned from baseball in August of 1989 after admitting to gambling on games while managing the Reds after his retirement. A report from independent lawyer John Dowd found evidence of bets on 52 Reds games in 1987 while Rose was manager. Dowd later stated in a 2002 interview that, despite having no concrete evidence to support this claim, Rose “probably” bet against the Reds at times, which is problematic for a number of reasons, to say nothing of compromising the integrity of the sport.

What Rose did — and I will not try to argue the contrary — was really bad. In response, Major League Baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti banned Rose on Aug. 24, 1989.

In a cruel twist of fate, Giamatti died of a heart attack just eight days later.

Rose — the game’s all-time hits leader — was out. He has, on several occasions, appealed for reinstatement,

but has been denied multiple times.

He has done so again in the past week, in light of the Astros’ nefarious sign-stealing scandal which has threatened the integrity of the sport just as much, if not more, than Rose’s actions. Rose is 78 years old, and it is fair to wonder if the sport will reverse his ban in his lifetime.

That being said, we are a nation of second chances. In the moments in which cancel culture doesn’t prevail, we can be extremely forgiving. Sports has some of the best examples: Michael Vick, Alex Rodriguez, Tiger Woods and even the late Kobe Bryant were all forgiven after their own transgressions and went on to lead successful lives after their playing careers. Rodriguez admitted to using steroids (twice!) and will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2022. He may not get in, but he’ll have a chance.

Pete Rose has never gotten this chance, and it’s time for that to change.

In a media landscape that has quickly embraced gambling, Rose’s actions are viewed differently today than they were 30 years ago. Yes, he did an awful thing. He should not be defended for doing it, and the sport was right to punish him severely.

However, what Rose did is now glorified in popular culture by those who are not coaches or managers. In its broadcast of the XFL’s kickoff weekend, ABC placed a spread next to the team that was favored and an over/ under in the middle of its bottomthird graphics package. While Rose’s suspension had less to do with gam-

bling and more to do with integrity, this progression cannot be ignored.

Perhaps the biggest indictment of Rose’s continued ban is baseball’s own foray into gambling. The sport has recently partnered with MGM Grand as its “official gambling partner” and (surprise!) you can bet on games, so long as you’re 21 and live in one of the 13 states where sports betting is legal. Another six states have recently passed laws legalizing sports gambling, and before you can say “three-batter minimum” and “juiced ball” 10 times fast, it will be legal in all 50 states. But yes, that’s fair to the “integrity” of the game, which has been so fatally compromised over the past couple of years.

Pete Rose has done his time. 30 years of exile haven’t seemed to change him — he only admitted to wrongdoing as a way to sell his own book — but he has served his sentence.

Baseball has a long and complicated history, with too many ups and downs to count. Right now, the sport is closer to the bottom of the valley than the top of the mountain.

Pete Rose is a central character in that story. So are Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and other steroid users who have been denied entry into the Hall of Fame while their enabler, former commissioner Bud Selig, has his own plaque in Cooperstown.

The president has chimed in. So have many fans and observers. We all agree: Pete Rose belongs in baseball, and he belongs with the greats in Cooperstown.

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Pete Rose has served a ban of over 30 years for gambling on baseball games.

Varsity Calendar HOME AWAY

Thursday Feb. 13

Friday Feb. 14

Saturday Feb. 15

Men’s Basketball Women’s Basketball

Follow us on Twitter at @theram_sports

Davidson 7 p.m.

Florida Int’l 7 p.m.

Baseball

Florida Int’l 6 p.m.

California/ Fresno St.

Softball

Cal Poly/ Fresno St.

2:30 p.m./8 p.m.

Hemery Valentine Invitational 2 p.m.

5:30 a.m/10:30 p.m.

Swimming

Monday Feb. 17

Tuesday Feb. 18

Wednesday Feb. 19

Duquesne 2 p.m.

La Salle 8 p.m.

Richmond 2 p.m.

Saint Louis 12 p.m.

Florida Int’l 12 p.m.

Marshall 10 a.m.

Women’s Tennis

Track

Sunday Feb. 16

Saint Mary’s 12 p.m.

A-10 Championship All Day

SPORTS

Page 22

February 12, 2020

Fordham Men’s Basketball Suffers Worst Loss of Season to Davidson

By ANDREW POSADAS MANAGING EDITOR

For a majority of the season, Fordham Men’s Basketball has been able to hang its hat on a steadfast defense, but Davidson College was able to take full advantage of head coach Jeff Neubauer on Tuesday evening. The Wildcats were able to knock down 18 three-pointers in front of its fans at Belk Arena on its way to easily defeating the Rams 79-49.

Fordham came into Tuesday’s game with Davidson sporting a 1-9 record in the A-10, leaving them in sole possession of 13th place after a loss to the University of Richmond over the weekend. The lack of consistency on offense continues to haunt coach Neubauer’s squad, with the Rams last among A-10 teams in scoring. The question surrounding this team lies in whether they can get to 60 points on a nightly basis to stay competitive throughout conference play.

What has not been questioned about Fordham is the effort put forth by its defense. Many wondered whether the defense would translate into A-10 play, considering that the conference is filled with dynamic

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It has been a difficult year all around for men’s basketball, but Tuesday night’s loss might have been the season’s zenith.

offenses capable of lighting up the scoreboard at any time. Despite the staunch competition, the Rams defense entered this week first in scoring defense, giving up just 61 points a game.

Unfortunately, Fordham ran into the proverbial buzzsaw against head coach Bob Mckillop’s team, who

boast two first-team A-10 guards in Jon Axel Gudmundsson and Kellen Grady. The Wildcats made their presence felt immediately, jumping out to a 24-9 lead in the first half.

Powered by a 21-5 run, Davidson did most of its damage from beyond the arc, netting 11 three-pointers through 20 minutes of regulation.

Men’s Track Loses in One Event at Millrose Games

By DYLAN BALSAMO

Japan Wins Titles at Four Continents

By MAGGIE ROTHFUS

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Last week was what one might consider a successful, and if not that, eventful, weekend of competition for the men and women of Fordham Track & Field. At the Metropolitan Championships on Staten Island, the Rams had multiple wins and impressive finishes across the table of events, and it made it seem as if things were on the up-and-up. It felt as if every week from then on out would be a steady ride to success as the winter season ended.

This week did not provide that same kind of satisfaction.

There was only one event of note, or at all, this week in track: the men sent a squad off on Saturday to the 168th Street Armory in New York City to compete at the second day of the Millrose Games. That quartet of young men competed in the 4x400 event, and out of the seven teams who finished the race, the Rams came in fifth place.

That is not the follow-up that a team would hope to have after last week.

After the Metropolitan Championships, Fordham had left Staten Island — the event was hosted by the University of Manhattan — flying high, as the winter season is nearing its end, and the most important events of the year are on the horizon.

The mentality of the Rams was exactly where you would expect it to be. “(The) race was just a nice reminder of how fit we are right now, and that there is a lot of room for progression not just from me but for a lot of our distance team,” said

As for the Rams, the offensive ineptitude reared its ugly head once again. At one point, Fordham was 1-of-13 shooting from the field on its way to scoring only 20 points for the entire first half. The Rams were outscored 31-7 in the final 13 minutes of the first half, with Fordham needing nearly 15 minutes of regu-

COPY CHIEF EMERITA

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

The Fordham men competed in one event, coming in fifth at the 4x400 race.

distance runner and graduate student Nicholas Raefski. “We have a lot of freshman on who are poised to have big breakthroughs in the near future. And it is a really exciting time to be a Fordham distance runner (or any member of the team). Coach Horowitz has done a great job getting us ready for (the) championship season.”

Ready as they may have been or may be now, it is very difficult to prove yourself as a squad when you only have one event to make a statement. That was the case for the Rams on Saturday.

The Fordham men who competed in the event were junior Antony Misko, junior Kyle Mack, freshman Erik Brown and junior Arthur Gooden Jr.

The finishing time of 3:20.56 put them in fifth place out of the seven teams with finishing times (an eighth team, Columbia, competed but was disqualified).

Like any team, the Rams must continue trekking and voyage on.

“We are preparing for the Boston Valentine Invitational at Boston University on the 14th and 15th of February, and then our conference meet at the end of the month,” Raefski said last week. “I’m very excited to see both our women’s team and men’s compete at these next two meets.”

That meet will begin on Friday, Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, at 2 p.m. at the Boston University Track & Tennis Center.

lation to break double-digits on the scoreboard. Davidson thoroughly dominated Fordham, taking a 45-20 lead at halftime.

Offensive woes continued to plague Fordham into the second half. After shooting 9-of-28 from the field through 20 minutes, the Rams followed it up by going 9-of-27 in the second half. Davidson put its offense on cruise control and at the final buzzer, the Wildcats handed Fordham its worst loss this season, beating the Rams by 30 points.

The loss drops Fordham to 7-16 this season and 1-10 in the A-10.

Sophomore guard Chris Austin led the Rams in scoring with 11 points.

Freshman center Joel Soriano had an efficient night, netting nine points and grabbing nine rebounds. Captain and senior guard Antwon Portley struggled from the field, scoring just eight points on 2-of-8 shooting.

Fordham Men’s Basketball continues Atlantic 10 play this Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m., welcoming Duquesne University to the historic Rose Hill Gymnasium. The game can be heard on WFUV 90.7 FM and seen exclusively on ESPN+.

Through the likes of Yuzuru Hanyu, Rika Kihira and Yuma Kagiyama, Japan still proves itself a formidable obstacle to other top figure skating countries.

The International Skating Union (ISU) just held its annual Four Continents Figure Skating Championships (4CC) from Feb. 4 through Feb. 9 in Seoul. As 4CC serves as a precursor to the World Figure Skating Championships, the podium winners from each discipline leave much to be discussed before next month’s competition.

While not gaining any podium spots in pairs or ice dance, Japan took gold in both men’s and ladies’ singles, as well as an additional bronze in the men’s discipline. Hanyu, 25, broke his previous world record for the short program with 111.82 points, and despite his two imperfect landings in the free skate, came up on top 24.6 points ahead of silver-medalist Jason Brown of the U.S. The ease of Hanyu’s win — his first at 4CC — can, in part, be attributed to the absence of his infamous rival, Nathan Chen of the U.S. The 20-year-old, two-time Worlds winner opted out of 4CC this year to focus on his studies at Yale, according to NBC Sports. Chen, known for his ability to land quad jumps perfectly, is perhaps the only man standing in Hanyu’s way to reclaim his Worlds title.

Hanyu’s trump card could be his planned quadruple axel, a jump no one has landed in competition before. According to Kyodo News, Hanyu’s axel is improving, and his

Worlds performance will be his “best program.” While Hanyu claims that the ice quality for his free skate at 4CC was not ideal, his mistakes during the program — along with his repeated routine — are enough to worry fans that a quad axel may remain hypothetical this season.

As for the rest of the men’s program, Brown, 25, showed yet again that quad jumps are not as important as fluidity and presentation — but only if one is as charismatic as he is. Kagiyama, 16, took the bronze medal and promises to be a top contender for Junior Worlds champion.

Of course, Japan’s success at 4CC did not end with Hanyu and Kagiyama. 17-year-old Kihira won gold for her second year in a row — her programs containing wonderfully landed triple axels. While South Korea’s Young You, 15, comes close to Kihira on the basis of having a consistent triple axel, Kihira’s 9.11-point lead begs to differ. You and bronze-medalist Bradie Tennell of the United States will have to work hard to compete with Kihira at Worlds.

Among Kihira’s rivals not present at 4CC were Russia’s Alena Kostornaia and Anna Scherbakova, who took gold and silver, respectively, at the European Championships just over two weeks ago. Kostornaia also has the triple axel down, making this match especially interesting.

If the U.S. wants a spot on the ladies’ podium, Tennell and Mariah Bell will have to perform with the same artistry and precision that we’ve seen recently, with a little extra kick. As for the men’s podium, it’s just the continuous and anticipated battle between Hanyu and Chen.

SPORTS

February 12, 2020

Anthony Cardone They’re Running Out of Time Let’s just cut to the chase and say the 2020 New York Yankees have got to be the favorite, or one of the favorites, to win the World Series.

We’ve seen in the last few years that maybe the Yankees didn’t have that one guy to get the big hit or pitch a big inning, but I think the third time’s the charm.

This offseason was full of surprises and kind of went in the Bronx Bombers’ favor. First, the Yankees signed the biggest free agent in the class, Gerrit Cole, to be the new ace for the next nine years. Then, a cheating scandal got two of the best teams’ managers fired and a general manager too. After that, probably the best player in the division, Mookie Betts, got shipped off to the Dodgers.

The Yankees need to win now.

Here are a couple of reasons why.

First, Aaron Judge, Gary Sánchez, and Gleyber Torres are running out of time for club control.

There is no way, with Cole and Giancarlo Stanton’s contracts that the Yankees are going to be able to afford these three, unless they opt out in a couple years. The Yankees need to win now, while they are cheap.

Second, the Yankees have a couple big guys that are going to hit the free agent market next offseason, including James Paxton, D.J. LeMahieu and Masahiro Tanaka. These are three impactful players that are still affordable while the Yankees have them and could possibly resign, but with the Yankees’ injuries in the recent past, anything is possible.

Third, the pressure is on them.

You can’t not win the World Series with a $245 million payroll. You have some of the biggest names in all of baseball on one team. The other contenders, like the Astros and the Red Sox that have beaten them in past playoffs, are slowly dying. It’s the Yankees’ turn to bring the 28th World Series Championship to the Bronx.

The Yankees have a rotation made up of Cole, Luis Severino, Tanaka, Jordan Montgomery, J.A. Happ and James Paxton (who is out for three to four months).

They have a lineup that consists of LeMahieu Judge, Torres, Stanton, Sánchez, Brett Gardner, Gio Urshela, Mike Tauchman, Luke Voit, Miguel Andújar, Tyler Wade and Kyle Higashioka. Then, they have the best bullpen in the game, with Aroldis Chapman, Zach Britton, Adam Ottavino, Tommy Kahnle, Chad Green, Jonathan Holder and Luis Cessa.

The team is loaded with young talent. As long as the Yankees don’t have the injury woes that haunted them this year, there is no reason the Bombers won’t bring a championship banner back to New York in 2020. While General Manager Brian Cashman never seems to panic and usually makes the right moves for the Yankees, to me it’s a “now or never” type of season, because the next few years could look a whole lot different in the Bronx.

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Chris Hennessy

Varsity Scores & Stats Women’s Basketball Rhode Island 50 Fordham 60 (FOR) DeWolfe: 18 PTS, 6 FG Fordham 69 Massachusetts 64 (FOR) Cavanaugh: 22 PTS, 6 FG Men’s Basketball Richmond Fordham (FOR) Portley: 12 PTS, 4 FG Fordham Davidson (FOR) Austin: 11 PTS, 3 3PT

59 53 49 79

Women’s Swimming & Diving NYU Winter Invite Individual Results Only (FOR) Long: 100 Breaststroke - 1:08.08 - 1st

Men’s Swimming & Diving NYU Winter Invite Individual Results Only (FOR) Grisbaum: 500 Freestyle - 4:47.77 - 1st Men’s Tennis Fordham Brown (FOR) Segarra: 7-5, 6-4

Softball Valparaiso Fordham (FOR) Pinto: 2-3, R

0 7

Fordham Connecticut (FOR) Mauritzon: 6-1, 6-3

6 1

Women’s Tennis Stony Brook 4 Fordham 3 (FOR) Taluyenko: 7-5, 5-7, 6-0 Fordham Army (FOR) Aude: 6-3, 6-3

3 4

8 9

Valparaiso Fordham (FOR) Pinto: 1-4

6 5

Fordham Houston (FOR) Carter: 1-3

1 6

Fordham 4 Northwestern State 3 (FOR) Aughinbaugh: 3-4, 2 R Men’s Track & Field Millrose Games 4x400 - 3:20.56 - 5th

Arina Taluyenko

Amanda Carey

Junior

Freshman

Women’s Tennis

Softball

This past weekend was Carey’s first ever weekend of college softball action, and her line of .500/.571/1.250 over the five games and four starts was enough to get her the Atlantic 10’s first Rookie of the Week award for the 2020 season.

Each week, The Fordham Ram’s sports editors honor two Fordham athletes for their on-field performances as their “Athletes of the Week.”

News & Notes • Women’s Tennis Has Two Honorees

While Fordham Rams’ junior Arina Taluyenko was awarded the Atlantic 10 Conference’s Women’s Tennis Player of the Week award, as was announced on Tuesday, her teammate, freshman Weronika Pociej, was given the Conference’s Rookie of the Week award for the same period of time. While this is Taluyenko’s second consecutive week as the honoree, this weekly award is the first for Pociej in her collegiate career. This week, both Taluyenko and Pociej went 2-0 in singles and 1-0 at doubles, combining the women’s tennis squad’s two matches against Stony Brook and Army in West Point, New York.

• Baseball Starts Ranked Second

In the release of the Atlantic 10 Conference’s preseason baseball coach’s poll for the 2020 season on Tuesday afternoon, the Fordham baseball program was picked by the league’s coaches to finish second for this season out of thirteen teams. The Rams, with their two first place votes, were one of just three teams in the conference to receive first place votes, with the other two being VCU (the projected conference winner) with eight and Dayton with three. Fordham is the defending champion of the conference, as the squad took home the Atlantic 10 Championship and appeared in the NCAA Tournament.

• Carey Named Rookie of Week

In her opening weekend of playing competitive

collegiate softball, freshman Amanda Carey was named by the Atlantic 10 Conference as their first Rookie of the Week award recipient of the season, as was announced by the league on Monday. Appearing in all five games that the Rams played on their opening weekend at the Houston Invitational, Carey was an absolute standout, starting in four of the games and finishing with a line of .5000/.571/1.250. The highlight of her weekend was the two-run home run she hit in the opening game against Valparaiso, a matchup the Rams ended up losing 5-4.

• DeWolfe Gets Rookie Honor

Not to be outdone by the two other Fordham

Rams freshman to receive a first year award this season, the freshman standout of Fordham Women’s Basketball, Anna DeWolfe, was awarded the Atlantic 10 Conference’s Rookie of the Week award for her achievements in the past week, as the league officially announced on Monday afternoon. This is the second distinction of such for DeWolfe this season and the first since the turn of the new year, as she took home this award for the week of Nov. 25.

5 4

Fordham UMass Lowell (FOR) 2-4, RBI

Athletes of the Week

For the second straight week, the women’s tennis standout Taluyenko was named the Atlantic 10’s Player of the Week. In matches against Stony Brook and Army this past weekend, Taluyenko totaled a mark of 2-0 in singles play and 1-0 in doubles matches.

The 68th Beanpot

—Compiled by Dylan Balsamo

Tournament The past two weeks marked the first two Mondays in February, which for college hockey fans is the closest thing to Christmas. The first Monday marks the semifinal games of the Beanpot, played at the home of the Boston Bruins, with the winners of the two games meeting the next week at TD Garden.

This year saw the two-time defending champion the Northeastern Huskies take on Harvard in the first semifinal. Before 2018, the Huskies had not won the tournament since 1988, and now they were going for three in a row. Northeastern handled Harvard 3-1 on the strength of a late second period goal from Brendan Van Riemsdyk and 27 saves from grad transfer goalie Craig Pantano. This was the less eventful of the two semifinal games, as they were followed up by the Battle of Commonwealth Avenue between Boston University and Boston College.

The Eagles had a 3-1 lead until 7:24 remaining in the third period, when the Terriers potted a goal, scored by David Farrance and assisted by Patrick Harper. Just over a minute later, Harper tied the game for BU on the power play. Then with two minutes left, Harper assisted on Robert Mastrosimone’s tie breaker to give BU the lead. When all hope seemed lost for BC, they were awarded a power play and capitalized with 58 seconds remaining to send it to overtime.

Through the first five minutes, no dice, which means the game is a tie in the NCAA’s book, and a second 20-minute overtime would be played.

Freshman forward Wilmer Skoog scored to send the Terriers back to the championship game.

This past Monday, the consolation game and championship game were played. The consolation game was a blow out, with BC defeating Harvard 7-2, but everyone came for the main event: the Championship game. The 68th Beanpot Championship went to overtime for the third time in the last 6 years, and it was an all-time classic.

BU started off hot, ending the first period up 2-0. Northeastern came out in the second looking like a team that wanted its third straight title, scoring four unanswered goals to take a commanding 4-2 lead headed into the final frame. This forced the Terriers to pull their goalie Ashton Abel after he allowed four goals. The third period was back to being all Terriers. They scored on David Farrance’s slap shot early in the frame, and the play went back and forth for the rest of the period. With a minute left, Northeastern iced the puck, meaning they had to keep their five tired guys on the ice.

They lost the faceoff but had a chance to clear the puck with under 30 seconds to go. Farrance kept the puck in the zone, starting a last-ditch effort for the Terriers which they capitalized. Trevor Zegras scored with two seconds left to send it to overtime.

The first OT ended, and in the second, Northeastern’s Jordan Harris scored on the power play, caused by a weak call on Harper for tripping, and the Huskies had the three-peat win.

The past two weeks showed once again that the Beanpot is one of the best events hockey has going, and other states are even trying to emulate it. Jan. 25-26 marked the first CT Ice Festival between Quinnipiac, Yale, UConn and inaugural champion Sacred Heart. Four of the top teams in the country, some of the best players and top NHL prospects and sell-out crowds every year; the Beanpot just continues to impress.

SPORTS

Page 24

February 12, 2020

The Fordham Ram

Women’s Basketball Survives Late Test in Massachusetts

By JIMMY SULLIVAN SPORTS EDITOR

Fordham Women’s Basketball followed a script most teams would envy against the University of Massachusetts on Saturday: build a lead, hold on to that lead in the second half and make free throws down the stretch to earn a victory. Fordham was especially clutch in the finish of Saturday’s game, making all but one of its 12 free throw attempts in the fourth quarter. The Rams shot an astounding 20-22 on the afternoon at the free throw line. As it turned out, Fordham needed every single one of those points.

MACKENZIE CRANNA /THE FORDHAM RAM

The Rams came out of Amherst with a 69-64 victory on Saturday afternoon in a game in which they led for all but 57 seconds.

Fordham built a 15-point lead by halftime and led by as many as 16 in the third quarter, but a late UMass comeback kept the home team in it until the game ended.

After UMass cut the lead to just five, Fordham’s three captains — junior Kendell Heremaia, redshirt junior Bre Cavanaugh and sophomore Kaitlyn Downey — made nine out of 10 free throws in the final 30 seconds to keep the Minutewomen at bay.

Fordham had been under siege in the second half by UMass and its leading scorer, junior Sam Breen. Breen finished the game with 21 points on 8-25 shooting from the field. Breen shot just 2-11 in the first half.

“When you’re on the road, that’s gonna happen,” Fordham coach Stephanie Gaitley said. “It’s just part of the game. I thought our kids made some critical mistakes, our shot selection became questionable, and then we gave some three-point plays, but at the end of the day, we did what we needed to do. We came here and got the win.”

The win is particularly important — and impressive — for Fordham in Atlantic 10 play. The Rams and Minutewomen entered Saturday effectively tied in the A-10 standings. Fordham was 6-3 while UMass was 6-4.

With this win and the weekend’s other results, Fordham moved into sole possession of third place in the conference

MACKENZIE CRANNA /THE FORDHAM RAM

The Rams aim to prove to be one of the A-10’s best against Davidson. while UMass stumbled back towards the middle of the pack.

“Separation is huge,” Gaitley said. “Every game is huge, it doesn’t matter who it is, but the one thing we have struggled with is winning on the road, and I think this was a great shot in the arm for us.”

Fordham was led by the usual suspects in the victory. Cavanaugh dropped 21 points, including a perfect 10-10 performance from the foul line. Her performance on Saturday continued her bonkers play since the turn of the calendar; Cavanaugh has averaged just over 22 points per game in 10 conference games, and in total, she has scored 41 more points than the conference’s second-leading scorer, University of Rhode Island senior Nicole Jorgensen. Heremaia

added 17 points, including 12 in the first half. Downey had 11 points and nine rebounds, and freshman Anna DeWolfe made her share of critical shots, scoring 12 points including a key jumper that put Fordham up 60-52 with a minute and a half to play.

Another significant contribution to the Fordham effort did not appear on the stat sheet.

Freshman point guard Sarah Karpell was asked to defend UMass senior Hailey Leidel, who entered Saturday scoring over 16 points per game. Karpell was up for the task, holding Leidel to just seven points on 2-10 shooting despite holding a four-inch size disadvantage.

Karpell, who averages just over two points per game, will be one of the most important players

for Fordham heading down the stretch of the season, and Saturday’s defensive performance was proof.

“Once she settled down, defensively, she was outstanding, and she made a really big difference,” Gaitley said.

With the win, Fordham is now 7-3 in conference play with a major opportunity to make up ground in the offing. Thanks to a weekend of backwards results that included a Davidson College loss to St. Bonaventure University and a Virginia Commonwealth University loss to the George Washington University, Fordham is now just one game behind VCU for second place in the conference standings, which would mean a first-round bye in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

The Rams will have a golden opportunity to keep pace on Thursday night at the Rose Hill Gym when Davidson comes to the Bronx. The Rams lost 74-62 to Davidson on Jan. 8 in what was Fordham’s worst defensive performance of the season to date.

Davidson is currently one game behind Fordham in the standings and would hold a seeding tiebreaker over Fordham with a win on Thursday. If Fordham wins, it is unlikely the Rams will have to worry about seeding tiebreakers with the Wildcats.

For now, though, it is best for the Rams to avoid these conversations. Fordham will take any win, no matter how it comes. Saturday was no different, nor will any other game be for the rest of the season.

Softball Aims to Build Off Opening Weekend in Houston

By EMMANUEL BERBARI STAFF WRITER

A slippery start for Fordham Softball finished on a high note as the Rams continue to search for an identity after a weekend stay at the Houston Invitational.

The Rams dropped their first four matchups, two to Valparaiso University and one game each against the University of Massachusetts Lowell and University of Houston, by a combined 26-22, before escaping with a 4-3 win over Northwestern State University on Sunday.

Notable negatives included an 0-4 start and the pitching staff largely getting shelled.

“We lost a couple of close games but ended the weekend on a good note,” senior captain Madie Aughinbaugh said. “We are young, and there are going to be some bumps along the way, but I think we did a good job of coming together and getting it done in our final game.”

Fordham’s young core gained some crucial experience against a Houston team that nearly won 40 games and fell a couple of runs short of a super regional, a UMass Lowell squad that tallied 15 wins in America East play and an always competitive Northwestern State team.

Fordham hung in every game and proved its offense has not

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

With a young squad seeing a weekend of ups and downs, the Rams look to take the positives forward. gone anywhere, despite losing six key senior mashers.

Freshman catcher Amanda Carey enjoyed a standout debut weekend, batting .500 with four extra-base hits, including two home runs. Junior Brianna Pinto ripped a team-high six hits and swiped five bags, while senior Madie Aughinbaugh scored a team-best five times. The Rams showed they have a multidimensional offense to replace some of

the departed firepower, going a perfect 12-for-12 on stolen base attempts.

While the newly-formed onetwo starting pitching punch of reigning Pitcher of the Year Aughinbaugh and freshman Devon Miller were roughed up early on, they ended the weekend on a much more palatable note.

Aughinbaugh permitted eight hits and five runs in her season debut, a complete game 5-4 loss to

Valparaiso, outdueled by redshirt junior Kelsie Packard who fanned 12 in a gritty performance.

Houston proved to be no kinder, tagging the All-Atlantic 10 force for six runs on eight hits in 4.2 innings. On the other hand, Miller surrendered five earned runs, including two homers, over four innings in a 9-8 loss to UMass Lowell.

“I don’t think it was necessarily that they did well, more so

we did not have our best stuff,” Aughinbaugh said. “I know I did not throw my best game against Valpo. Houston was able to string a couple of hits together, and that was the difference.”

A narrow 6-5 loss to Valpo saw a tag team effort between junior Anne Marie Prentiss and sophomore Makenzie McGrath, who allowed a combined 14 hits.

Miller, though, fired a scoreless 1.1 innings to back up Aughinbaugh against Houston, and paved the way for a much more effective outing to avoid a winless weekend.

The Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania native tossed six innings of seven-hit, three-run (two earned) ball, walking none and striking out four, giving way for Aughinbaugh, who earned the save and sealed the deal on a 4-3 victory with a perfect seventh.

“It was definitely a good confidence boost for us to finish out the weekend on high note,” Aughinbaugh said. “The nerves shifted into positive energy and we were ready to compete.”

Fordham is back in action this weekend on the west coast at the Fresno State Kick-Off Classic, with matchups on tap against the University of California, California Polytechnic State University, Saint Mary’s College of California and the host Bulldogs.