Volume 105 Issue 18

Volume 105, Issue 18

Serving The Fordham University Community Since 1918 TheFordhamRam.com

October 25, 2023

Fordham Student Life Reacts to Council Conflict in Discusses Gaza Strip University

By SAMANTHA MINEAR

By GRACE GALBREATH

On Oct. 7, 2023, the Islamic-Palestinian militant group Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, a series of coordinated attacks against Israel and its citizens. The attack coincided with the end of the Sukkot Jewish holiday and the 50th anniversary of the October War. Hamas launched 5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip and approximately 2,500 Palestinian militants “[hit] more than 20 sites in southern Israel, killed more than 1,000 people, including women and children, and abducted an estimated 150 more people,” according to the New York Times.

Hamas stated they were motivated by the “desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque as well as Israeli atrocities against Palestinians over the decades,” according to Al Jazeera. “These include the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians as well as the growth of illegal

On Wednesday, Oct. 18, the university held its second Student Life Council (SLC) meeting of the semester. The council welcomed University Dining Contract Liaison, Deming Yaun, to discuss university dining.

The meeting opened with introductions. Representatives from the Residence Halls Association (RHA), Commuting Students Association (CSA), Campus Activities Board (CAB) and United Student Government (USG) were in attendance. Assistant Vice President and Dean of Students at Rose Hill Christopher Rodgers was also present.

After introductions, the floor

By SOFIA DONOHUE was opened for public concerns.

DIGITAL PRODUCER None were raised.

Yaun, joined by several Aramark and Fordham dining representatives, presented an update on university dining. Yaun first gave an outline of his life, and then described the university’s current dining status. He said there are many advantages to contracting, citing Aramark’s dining expertise

SEE GAZA, PAGE 6

SEE SLC, PAGE 4

& EMMA KIM

ASST. NEWS EDITOR

COURTESY OF ISABEL DANZIS/THE FORDHAM RAM

On Oct. 24, protesters gathered outside of Representative Ritchie Torres's office on Fordham Road.

Bronx Representative’s Comments Spark Protest on Fordham Road

By ISABEL DANZIS EDITOR IN CHIEF

Protestors gathered outside of Representative Ritchie Torres’s (D- N.Y.) office on Tuesday, Oct. 24 to protest Torres’s statement on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Torres represents New York’s 15th district, which covers areas of the Bronx — including Fordham. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict broke out on Oct. 7 after

the militant group — Hamas — fired missiles into Israel.

Since the outbreak, Israel has retaliated by repeatedly attacking Gaza, a prominent city in Palestine.

Torres released a statement on Oct. 7 in support of Israel.

Torres said: “Hamas has declared war on Israel – launching a surprise and unprecedented terrorist attack overnight,

invading Israeli towns and taking hostages, firing more than 2,000 rockets, murdering at least 40 Israelis and counting, and otherwise ambushing Israeli by air, land, and sea.

Israelis are doing precisely what we, as Americans, would do if we found ourselves under sudden attack — defending itself and its people.

I unequivocally stand with SEE RALLY, PAGE 4

Fordham Prepares For Flu Season

By NORA MALONE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF TAYLOR HA/FORDHAM NEWS

On Oct. 10, President Tetlow did a ceremonial ribbon cutting at the second-floor Marketplace.

Fordham Opens Marketplace II on Second Floor of McShane Campus Center

By CRISTINA STEFANIZZI CONTRIBUTING WRITER

With the closing of the McShane Marketplace, the main dining location on the Rose Hill campus, comes “Destination Dining,” which consists of a series of six

pop-up “all you care to eat” dining locations in place of the main cafeteria.

In March, it was announced that the McShane Marketplace would close for renovations for the 202324 academic year. The dining hall officially closed its doors with a

farewell dinner on Oct. 5, with students signing the walls of the old cafeteria and having their last meals with friends. The menu consisted of meals from different decades dating back to the dining hall’s opening in the 1950s.

SEE DINING, PAGE 5

As the colder air rolls in, students have to prepare for two things: midterms and the flu. Flu outbreaks in dorms are common. Close quarters allow respiratory illness to spread quickly.

The flu season is generally lasts from Nov. to Feb., but in recent years, it starts earlier and ends later.

One precaution most people take is getting their flu shot, either at the University Health Center or a local pharmacy.

The Health Center had flu shot events where students

can walk in and get their shots.

“We try to have a flu vaccine clinic weekly,” said Maureen Keown, director of health services. “Generally, we send out an email notifying students of the event, and hopefully, by advertising specific flu vaccine clinics, it encourages students to come get the flu vaccine. We have had a good showing for flu vaccines since starting the flu clinics.”

The university will have the vaccine available for the rest of the school year and into next year before the new one rolls out. This is in response to the extended flu season.

However, the Health Center's SEE FLU, PAGE 3

in this issue

News

Page 5

Opinion

Page 9

Russian Journalist Educates on Religious Context in Russo-Ukrainian War

Bridging the Gap Between Commuters and Campus

Culture Page 13

Sports

FDM Hosts Second Annual Mr. Fordham Pageant

Page 17

This Beautiful Life: Softball Alum Sarah Taffet Shares Her Journey Two Years After Cardiac Arrest

NEWS

Page 2

PUBLIC SAFETY BRIEFS Oct. 12 Mobile Incident 2:45 a.m.

On Thursday, a parent called Public Safety regarding a call they had received. The parent said they received a call from someone claiming to be the police, and that their student was arrested.

The caller said the parent needed to send $400 via Venmo or Cash App for the student to be released. The parent called the student who confirmed they were not arrested. The parent did not send any money and declined to make a police report.

Oct. 15 Parking Garage 8:33 p.m.

On Sunday, a staff member reported the theft of their bicycle from the crew team trailer that was parked on the northside of the parking garage along the Southern Boulevard fence. The supervisor conducted a video review which revealed a nonFordham person removed the bike from the open area of the trailer and exited campus. The bicycle was not locked. The staff member declined to notify the NYPD at this time.

Oct. 21 Post 3 4:20 p.m.

On Saturday, the security guard at Post 3 requested the supervisor for three males who entered Post 3. One of the males threatened the guard with a nightstick. The second male threw rocks at the booth.

The third male taunted the guard. The males ran off prior to the supervisor’s arrival.

Follow us on Instagram! @thefordhamram

October 25, 2023

English Department’s Mary Higgins Clark Chair Event Hosts Author Ava Chin

By EMMA KIM NEWS EDITOR

On Wednesday, Oct. 18, the Fordham English department hosted their annual Mary Higgins Clark Chair Event, this year co-sponsored

by Fordham’s new Asian American Studies program.

The keynote speaker was Ava Chin, and the event focused on her new novel “Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion & Homecoming.”

“Ava Chin’s book is really almost a new genre that she’s created herself. It’s a family history and a personal history and the history of Chinese exclusion in America, and the history of Mott Street in Chinatown — all brought together in a sort of wonderfully creative, fascinating mix,” said Mary Bly, chair of the English department.

Bly explained that Mary Higgins Clark’s request — that the speakers are not always just writing straight literary fiction — is what has allowed the English department to expand past a singular genre this year and in years past.

Higgins Clark, an FCLC alumna and New York Timesbestselling author, donated a million dollars for the Mary Higgins Clark Chair to aid Fordham’s creative writing department, provide scholarships for students and make the keynote speaker event happen.

“Ava Chin’s reading is precisely the kind of event that is the epitome of the programming that Asian American Studies supports,” said Stephen Sohn, co-director of the Asian American Studies program.

“Her incredible archival research, her exploration of the Chinese American experience over multiple generations, as well as her keen understanding of the racializing aspects that made life so difficult for Chinese Americans in New York City, make ‘Mott Street’ a monumental publication for those that study Asian

COURTESY OF EMMA KIM/THE FORDHAM RAM

Ava Chin was the keynote speaker at the English department’s annual Mary Higgins Clark Chair Event.

American culture and history.”

Sarah Gambito, the director of creative writing, introduced Chin, who started by reading an excerpt from her novel. Chin grew up in Flushing, Queens, but both sides of her family had deep roots and history in Chinatown on Mott Street.

“Spend time with the people who raised you and ask them questions,” said Chin when explaining how to write a family history, and how she started to write hers.

Chin shared that she faced three main fears while writing: fear of rejection, fear of writing the story and fear of actually publishing the book.

Since she had a complicated relationship with the paternal side of her family, it caused the fear of rejection to be heightened even more for her.

While looking into her past during her 20s, she discovered that both sides of her family lived in the same building on Mott Street, but hated each other. This complicated the story even more. On top

of family complications, Chin explained the legislation and racism at the time that she was asking people about made it hard to find people willing to talk.

“Who was I?” Chin repeated multiple times after explaining all the roadblocks.

Chin ended up leaving New York for graduate school and leaving the story behind. When she came back to teach as a professor in New York, she learned new details about her family history that gave her a frame to create a story, and she made a commitment to the book.

“Once you have committed to the story, that is when it’s time to buckle up your seatbelt and enjoy the ride,” Chin said.

During the Q&A portion of the event, Chin talked about staying dedicated to her writing and how some of her fears did come to fruition but said it was important to stay present and understand what you are feeling and realize it is valid. In addition, she gave advice to students on how to create a story.

“The best stories take something really large, some massive thing happening in society but look at it through the lens of ordinary people and individual lives,” Chin said.

When asked how she chooses what genre to write in, Chin explained that “when a story falls into [her] lap, it is the story that dictates the genre.”

Overall, Bly said she hoped that students learn something about Chinatown and the history of Chinese exclusion in America, but even further, they are inspired and energized by seeing someone who created their own genre.

“Lots of people in that audience will have really interesting personal stories of their own that interlock with American history in important ways, different ways… Everybody has stories that come from different places… And those stories need to get out, and I’m hoping this is a way of inspiring people to say, you know, ‘maybe later in life, I’m going to do something like this,’” Bly said.

This Week at Fordham Friday Oct. 27

Saturday Oct. 28

Saturday Oct. 28

Saturday Oct. 28

Sunday Oct. 29

CAB Spooky Bingo

Fordham versus Holy Cross

Family Weekend Mass

Maroon Mainstage

Jesuit Walking Tour

Moglia Stadium 1 p.m.

University Church 4:30 p.m.

Join Fordham students, alumni and families to watch the big game as Fordham Football takes on Holy Cross. There will be a variety of food trucks on O’Hare lawn during the game.

Come together as a community to worship at the Fordham’s family liturgy. No tickets are required for the mass and additional seating is available in the basement chapel.

Keating 1st 8-10 p.m.

Commence your Halloween weekend at Campus Activities Board’s (CAB) spooky bingo for the chance to win fabulous prizes. Tickets are reccommended but not required.

Fordham Prep Theatre 8-9:30 p.m.

Spend your Saturday night enjoying a spectacular show from Fordham’s talented performance groups. Tickets are required and a livestream of the event will be available.

Meet at The Great Hall 11 a.m.

Have you ever wondered: Who are the Jesuits? What is their connection to education? Join alumni Robert. J Reilly, FCRH ‘72, LAW ‘75, for a walking tour of Fordham Rose Hill.

NEWS

October 25, 2023

Page 3

Fordham Prepares For Flu Season

FROM FLU, PAGE 1

flu shot is not free. Students have to pay $35 to get the vaccine.

“UHS charges for the flu vaccine because it is a cost to our department,” said Keown.

“Students can receive the vaccine at UHS, and they can print a copy of the receipt and submit it to their insurance plan.

We are considered out of network for most insurances, so it would be best to call your insurance and ask if they would reimburse for the vaccine fee.”

Not all students are on board with being charged for their flu shot.

“I think we pay enough to go here that [a free flu shot] should be a reasonable thing,”

said Brigitte Gendron, FCRH ’26. “We pay for school insurance, and that should cover it.”

“It should be free,” said Grace Lawlur, FCRH ’27.

Keown said she recommends students who cannot pay should go to local pharmacies for their shots. The Walgreens on Fordham Road currently offers the vaccine and accepts most major insurance plans.

Throughout the season, the Health Center said it plans to keep students aware of how to keep themselves safe during flu season.

“Students are educated on

preventative measures to take, and measures to take when they have the flu. We communicate this during their visits to UHS and on our monthly newsletter,” said Keown. “Students can also walk in for a flu vaccine at any time, and UHS would fit this into the schedule as soon as possible that day.”

Students also have personal precautions they take. These include stocking up on medicine, staying hydrated and monitoring loved ones’ health.

As flu season comes, an increased risk of COVID-19 follows. Students who visit the health center with flu-like

symptoms are also tested for COVID-19. The Health Center continues to recommend students get the most recent COVID-19 booster. However, the Health Center does not offer the booster.

Keown said she recommends students also look to local pharmacies for access to the booster. However, since the U.S. Government no longer has control of the vaccines, private companies are handling distribution, and it’s become much more challenging to get an appointment.

Pharmacies have to order and pay upfront for the vaccines themselves. And while

Pfizer and Moderna both have shipped their doses, finding appointments is still difficult for many citizens.

In previous years, the Health Center used surveillance testing to keep an eye on the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Fordham community.

There are no plans to bring that back, as Keown said Fordham’s COVID-19 numbers have stayed low.

Students interested in getting their flu shot should call the Health Center, whose number can be found on their website. Students can also email them for more information at health@fordham.edu.

USG Discusses Future Projects and Safety Measures

By SOFIA SEMPER STAFF WRITER

The Fordham Rose Hill United Student Government (USG) met on Thursday, Oct. 12, to discuss possible renovations to campus and new business.

John D. Puglisi, the associate vice president for facilities management, gave a presentation about facilities’ current projects and possible future projects. He explained they are currently working on their four-phase McShane Campus Center renovation plan; the first phase has already been completed and Marketplace is currently being renovated along with the second floor being reprogrammed. Puglisi stated the Marketplace has not been renovated since 2004 and that this renovation is long overdue. The facilities team is also working on façade restorations in both Faculty Memorial Hall (FMH) and Loyola Hall, and they are aiming for this work to be completed by Dec. 23, 2023. In addition to these two buildings, façade restorations at the University Church will be beginning next month. Lastly, there will also be a boiler plant restoration in Thebaud Hall.

Puglisi also presented some of their future large projects at Rose Hill, which include a new STEM facility for the biology, math, physics and computer science departments, extra dormitory space through renovating Faber Hall or building an entire new space and adding geothermal heating and cooling capacity in hopes of lowering their carbon consumption. He stated that water fountains and water bottle filler stations are planned to be in every dormitory building. He briefly mentioned that there has been talk about building a hotel near campus for students’ parents to be able to stay in but that plan is not official as of right now.

Puglisi ended his presentation by saying that the facilities department has many fun activities, and he said he hopes that students will look to them for internships and different career opportunities.

Kayla Velez, the assistant director for leadership and commuter student services, stated the lockers in McShane should be available for students this week, reminded everyone that Family Weekend is Oct. 27-29 and said Thanks-Give-Away is set to be on Nov. 17 and the Commuter Student Association (CSA) is holding open calls for DJs and performers.

Vice President of Student Life Brian Ingaunti, FCRH ’24, stated Keating Steps will officially be this spring and will possibly be around Spring Weekend. Vice President of Fordham College at Rose Hill Emma Balint, FCRH ’24, said that the FCRH Dean’s Council had their meeting with Dean Maura Mast, and Mast spoke about FCRH Dean’s Council potential future involvement in the core revision process.

Balint also explained that Mast said they are reconstructing the class registration system, and the new system could be completed by the time students have to register for spring classes. Vice President of Operations Lauren Walczyk, FCRH ’25, reported that both budget and operation packets are due Nov. 2. Vice President of Gabelli Catie Flores, GSB ’25, said the GSB Dean Council’s Academic Subcommittee will be having a table on Oct. 30. Vice President of Sustainability Sean Power, FCRH ’24, stated the Native Plant proposal is done and they are now planning Sustainability Week. He also said that Fordham Flea has run out of storage so they will most likely need to present a budget request soon.

The Facilities and Dining committee’s representative stated the food truck is currently on its way to campus and the USG Town Hall is planned for Oct. 24 in the Great Hall.

Senator Deborah Adebanjo, FCRH ’26, explained she is looking into creating a proposal for the tardy policy for commuter students and to possibly have some dorm lounges open to commuter students as well.

Senator Karam Youseff, GSB ’26, reported he recently met with Julie Gafney, the assistant vice president for strategic mission initiatives/executive director for the Center of Community Engaged Learning, to continue

his work on the MENA proposal and to discuss how Muslim and Arab can be better accommodated on campus.

Lastly, Senator Evan McManus, FCRH ’25, said he felt the USG should release a statement regarding the university’s response to the flooding on Friday, Sept. 29 as many students, specifically commuter students, were upset with how that situation was handled.

USG met on Thursday, Oct. 19 to discuss safety precautions on campus and new business.

Robert Fitzer, associate vice president for Fordham Public Safety, gave a presentation in which he discussed various safety precautions that students should follow and updates to the university’s safety measures. A new safety measure that has been added in every Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) cabinet are Naloxone (Narcan) kits which can reverse the effects of opioids. Fitzer also warned students to beware of internet scams such as artificial intelligent (AI) voice cloning, apartment scams and job scams.

McManus asked Fitzer about Public Safety’s re-

sponse to the intense campus flooding from a few weeks ago.

Fitzer explained that Public Safety normally has a meeting with other administrators to discuss the best course of action and precautions when large storms are projected. He stated that it was difficult to pivot their course of action because, by the time Governor Kathy Hochul issued the state of emergency warning at 11 a.m., they felt most people were either already on campus or, at the very least, in transit. Fitzer said they have to go on the reliability of their information and, in this case, the information came in late.

Walczyk asked what students can do if they were physically unable to get to campus due to the flooding but their professors still counted it as an unexcused absence. He stated the students should contact their deans and ask them if they can help them with this issue.

Flores presented a budget request for the GSB’s Dean’s Council academic subcommittee’s tabling on Oct. 30. She requested funding for an order of donuts they can give out to students as an incentive for students to give their input on the Gabelli experience. Walczyk presented a budget request for food for her committee and Vice President of Health and Security Molly

Ewing, FCRH ’25, presented a budget request for T-shirts for a future event. All budget requests were approved.

Walczyk stated both Budget and Operation packets are due on Nov. 2 and that clubs should reach out to their club liaisons about any questions or concerns about the packets.

Inguanti said that he is currently planning for the McShane Art Show in McShane Gallery, and they are working on increasing advertising. Balint, announced that FCRH Dean’s Council’s undergraduate research subcommittee will be holding a panel on Nov. 2 for student’s to learn more about undergraduate research opportunities. Ewing stated she is working with the Vice President of Facilities and Dining Jamie Serruto, FCRH ’24, and Destination Dining on an upcoming event titled “Lets TACO-bout Consent.” Serruto said he is looking forward to the collaboration, and he is meeting with the construction workers about the progress with the Marketplace.

Senator Aidan Costella, FCRH ’27, asked Serruto if the Facilities and Dining team had considered adding any on-campus dining options for Halal students. Serruto said the new Marketplace is supposed to have a separate Halal station for students and faculty to enjoy.

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

On Oct. 19, Robert Fitzer gave a presentation to the United Student Government.

NEWS

Page 4

October 25, 2023

Student Life Council Discusses University Dining FROM SLC, PAGE 1

as a helpful source.

Yaun also presented dining statistics from the current academic year in comparison to statistics from 2022. He said the number of campus dining sales have grown, citing the reason for the growth as the new smaller dining venues.

Yaun said 59,000 guests were served in the week studied.

Following the September launch of destination dining, university dining services is planning to unveil more dining updates. Yaun said the dining services will implement the Chomp Food Truck and launch a families eat free program in October. He also highlighted a full retail analysis and feedback program that will both open in November.

Yaun said the university is planning to tease the reopening of the Marketplace in spring 2024 and fully reopen the dining location in fall 2024.

Following Yaun’s presentation, Associate Director for Campus Center Operations Stephen Clarke asked about university dining’s student involvement options and collaborations with other organizations.

Yaun said university dining is currently collaborating with the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and

is always happy to work with other Fordham clubs and organizations.

Executive President of CSA Hector Cruz raised concerns about creating a space for commuter students to sit within the Marketplace.

Yaun said creating a space within the Marketplace would make it difficult to monitor whether students are eating without paying. He said that he is hopeful that following the later phases of construction, there will be additional options for commuter students to sit with resident friends.

Rodgers clarified that the Terrace Lounge on the second floor is open to everyone, and that it is a great option for commuter students and residents to sit together. Yaun also mentioned that commuting meal plans are a great option for students.

Cruz commented that he looks forward to further discussing this with the USG Facilities and Dining Committee.

Eron Maltzman, chair of the student activities budget committee, asked which of the new dining options will be eliminated after the construction is complete.

Yaun said that the university has not surveyed to decide which will stay open, but ideally all dining options will remain open.

A representative for CAB raised concerns about the handling of dietary restrictions during the interim period.

Yaun said that each destination dining location currently offers at least one item for those with dietary restrictions. He also said that the university will keep working to expand allergen-free options until the Marketplace reopens.

Following Yaun’s presentation, Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life Charles Clency shared the monthly intoxication reports. After the report was presented, representatives from USG raised concerns that numbers from the previous month’s report were inaccurate. Clency confirmed that the previously reported numbers were accurate.

Executive Vice President for USG Ava Coogan presented an update on the organization’s goals for the semester. Coogan said USG is working to increase transparency this semester. She said that the board is currently working through oneon-one meetings with senators.

Coogan also highlighted the presence of several guests welcomed to USG meetings. She highlighted University Dining, the Alumni Network and Public Safety.

Executive President for USG

Briana Al-Omoush spoke about the proposals that USG is currently working on. Al-Omoush said that USG is pushing to prioritize sustainability and feature more DEI events.

Maltzman, who served as the student representative for the Operations and Finance and Budget committees, said that USG hosted club leader training on Oct. 4 and 18. He also said budget packs will open soon.

A representative for CSA said the new lockers, located in the basement of McShane, are now operational and ready to go. They will be free for the remainder of the semester, but will cost money next semester. A representative from RHA said that the organization’s special election period just ended. The representative said that construction for additional water bottle filling stations will begin soon.

A representative for CAB said that the board is planning to host several Halloween events, including a haunted house in Rod’s and golf cart ghost tours. The representative said that they have also planned several events for Family Weekend. She emphasized that tickets for CAB family weekend events are only mandatory for the brunch. For all other events, tickets are not mandatory, but can

be purchased.

A representative for the Gabelli School of Business gave an update on class registration.

The representative said that registration begins on Nov. 3.

A representative for Fordham College Rose Hill added that the class registration page has changed and that students should check for their class registration date, as the credit breakdown is slightly different than last registration period.

The representative for Fordham College Rose Hill also mentioned she would like to pursue making First-Year Formation a mandatory, credit-bearing class.

The Office of Student Involvement reported that 2023 Family Weekend preparations are underway.

Clarke reiterated that the last day of programming is Dec. 8. He also said that student clubs and organizations looking to host indoor events should book rooms soon.

Clency presented an update on behalf of RHA. He said the residence hall intent to vacate dates have been moved up, and that they are hoping the halls will be 100% full for the spring semester.

Rodgers concluded the meeting by thanking student clubs and organizations for attending the SLC meeting.

Bronx Representative’s Comments Spark Protest on Fordham Road

FROM RALLY, PAGE 1

Israel as it rightly defends itself and condemn in the strongest possible terms the actions of Hamas — a terrorist organization that has long sought the destruction of the Jewish state — and extend my deepest condolences for the innocent Israel lives lost thus far.”

Rallygoers today showed support for Palestine and refuted Torres’s statement. On East Fordham Road, in front of Best Deli, people gathered with signs showing support for Palestinian liberation. They chanted things like: “Israel you can’t hide! Israel you can’t hide! You’re committing genocide! You’re committing genocide! Ritchie Torres you can’t hide! Richie Torres you

can’t hide! You’re committing genocide! You’re committing genocide!”

“I’m involved in a group called Jewish Voice for Peace. We’re the largest Jewish group that fights against the Israeli apartheid system and we’re involved in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, and we’ve been one of the leaders in this fight against genocide that’s happening now in Palestine,” said Pam Sporn, a Bronx resident for 30 years and a constituent of Ritchie Torres. “And while we don’t condone the killing of civilians, we are very clear that the killing of the Israeli people should not be weaponized to justify the genocide of Palestinians, and the crushing oppression Palestinians have had to face for

the last 75 years is the root cause of all of that violence. What we need to do is immediately call for a ceasefire and demand that the U.S. government stop funding militarily the Israeli military machine that is making this violence continue.”

Another protester at the rally, named Steve, who declined to provide their last name, agreed with Sporn’s sentiments calling for a ceasefire. Steve said that within that call, it is important to consider the historical context of the conflict.

“Primarily I’m out here first to help stop the killing. There needs to be a ceasefire, second to help stop the causes behind what’s going on. The mainstream media in this country has ignored the context of all what’s been going on

the past two weeks, so they like to start history on Oct. 7 in the Hamas atrocities, which must be condemned of course. But they take it out of context,” said Steve.

Bobby, Steve’s wife, who also declined to say their last name, like others said that she attended the protest because of a longtime involvement in advocacy for Palestinian liberation.

“We’ve been activists our entire life, and what’s going on in Israel and the impact on the Palestinians is horrendous and we’ve been fighting that for many years to not have. We fight for others. We live in the Bronx,” said Bobby.

Many at the rally said they came to make an active motion to show their disapproval of Torres.

“We’re out here today because Ritchie Torres has been supporting the genocide going on in Palestine right now.

And it’s particularly ridiculous because he claims to be a progressive, but he is being an apologist for a far-right, racist, extremist, Zionist regime of Benjamin Nethanyu when they’re just wantonly bombing a densely populated area of Gaza,” said a protest attendant named Nick, who declined to give their last name.

In addition to the chants, many activists spoke. They spoke about Palestinian liberation and condemned Torres’s support of Israel.

The Ram contacted Torres’s office for comment and did not receive a response.

Fordham Junior Researches Public Housing and Air Pollutants

By ALICE GAALSWYK STAFF WRITER

Over the summer, Christian Hidalgo, FCRH ’25, assessed the spatial association between public housing in the Bronx and ambient air pollutants. “I was looking to see if higher concentration of public housing was correlated with a higher emittance of whatever air pollutant,” Hidalgo said.

Hidalgo said that the Bronx is divided up into 12 different community districts. He looked to see which districts had a higher proportion of public housing, and then used New York City’s Community Air Survey to find data for emittance of air pollutants based on seasonality and yearly averages. This air survey, which has been conducted since 2012, uses air monitors around the city to observe the levels of a variety of air pollutants like PM 2.5, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone pollution across different parts of New York City.

The first half of Hidalgo’s research involved an in-depth analysis of the history of public housing, looking at why it was placed where it was. “I read a lot of literature on Robert Moses specifically, the infamous city planner; I read about him, I read about the Housing Act of 1939, and various other federal and city laws and regulations that affected where public housing was concentrated,” Hidalgo said. In this initial literature review, Hidalgo said he wanted to contextualize the impetus for this research and help others understand the current state of public housing. He said he also wanted to explain the importance of understanding this correlation and how it was the result of city and federal policies. In the second half of the summer, Hidalgo transitioned towards looking at the actual city data and trying to place his research within the larger implications of housing policy and environmental classism in general.

Although Hidalgo is still work-

ing on a final draft of his research project, preliminarily, he was able to see a large correlation between public housing and air pollutants. The community districts one and three had the largest proportion of public housing in the Bronx, and both of these districts primarily lie in the South Bronx.

Hidalgo found a statistically significant correlation between many of the air pollutants and the concentration of public housing. This is especially compelling data particularly when considering the small sample size that Hidalgo was working with. When talking about himself and his advisor, Dr. Emily Rosenbaum of the sociology department, Hidalgo said, “At the end of the summer we were both shocked because it is a very strong correlation for the small sample size that I had, and the fact that a majority of them were statistically significant is also crazy.”

Hidalgo became interested in

this issue of air pollution and how it plays a role within classism because of his upbringing in central California, where his hometown is the second-largest oil-producing county in the United States and has the third-worst ozone pollution and second-worst PM 2.5 pollution in the contiguous United States. However, in comparison to New York, the West Coast really does not have the same level of public housing, so when Hidalgo came to New York, he became interested in looking at the correlation between these two factors, since public housing is made for low-income people and families. “I have always been interested in air pollution and its role within different ethnic groups and socioeconomic status,” Hidalgo said.

In the future, Hidalgo said he hopes to examine this issue in all of New York City, not just the Bronx. Hidalgo also said he wants to show with his research that the typical method of public housing may not be

the best way to go about creating affordable housing for lower income people. In the 1950s and 1960s, enormous public housing developments were created, destroying entire blocks. Hidalgo said he wants to draw attention that this may not be the most effective way to go about creating affordable housing; instead, integrating public housing into “normal” neighborhoods can be a mechanism of allowing access to affordable housing while not completely concentrating poverty in one particular area. On a broader scale, Hidalgo said he wanted to highlight the issue of environmental classism and just how many aspects of life it can touch and impact.

“This has much broader implications in that poor people are just exposed to more environmental hazards in general because of city, federal, and state regulations, along with just where we push poor people,” Hidalgo said.

NEWS

October 25, 2023

Page 5

Fordham Opens Marketplace II on Second Floor of McShane Campus Center FROM DINING, PAGE 1

“I love that we got to sign the walls to show that a piece of us remains, in a sense,” said Agostino Facciolo, GSB ’27. “I’m looking forward to seeing what the new cafeteria will look like as she is entering her revamped era, but I enjoy second-floor McShane a lot.

I feel like there is more space and it isn’t as loud – there’s more of a calm vibe to it.”

Marketplace II on the second floor of the McShane Campus Center, as well as a temporary dining hall in Bepler Commons, serve the same food as seen in the Marketplace, being the closest substitute to the cafeteria while it undergoes renovations.

On Oct. 10, President Tania Tetlow did a ceremonial ribbon cutting at the second-floor Marketplace to mark the beginning of renovations and the opening of the temporary dining hall.

“The renovation of the Marketplace on the first floor of the Campus Center is the last stage of the Campus Center renovation,” said Deming Yaun, the university dining contract liaison.

The renovations consist of transforming the Marketplace into a space intermixed with food stations and seating rather than having the food and seating

separate. The renovations are expected to be completed in August.

“Bepler is not very good and has a very weird atmosphere and is very out of the way unless you are a freshman,” said Seneca WardBailey, FCRH ’26. “Second-floor McShane is a good replacement for the cafeteria, but it is always much quieter than the cafeteria ever was, which I personally like, but some people might not like that.”

In addition to Marketplace II and Bepler Commons, Bronx Bagel Co. in Dagger John’s, the Grab ‘n Go in McShane and two coffee carts also serve as temporary dining options for students. All of these options work with a meal plan, cash or credit card and have options to cater to dietary restrictions, according to Yaun.

An on-campus food truck will arrive soon – called CHOMP – according to Yaun. Updates on its opening can be found on Ram Dining’s Instagram: @ramdining.

“At the second floor McShane cafeteria, I find that a lot of the options and foods remain the same [as the Marketplace], but I do miss being able to serve some of the food myself at the cafeteria,” said Madison Gakopoulos, FCRH ’25.

Some students have expressed interest in extending the dining hall hours, as well as having Bepler

Commons open on weekends since it is only open Monday-Thursday.

“I wish [the temporary dining halls] were open longer, especially

during the evenings and weekend mornings,” said Cate Dalton, FCRH ’27. “Lots of people want to eat after 7:00 or 8:00 at night.

McShane also has lots of breakfast options, but sometimes on the weekends I have activities before 10:00, which is when they open.”

COURTESY OF ALEX ANTONOV/THE FORDHAM RAM

Marketplace II opened in the beginning of October and has hosted hundreds of students.

Russian Journalist Educates on Religious Context in Russo-Ukrainian War

By SAMANTHA MINEAR FEATURES EDITOR

On Oct. 11, two university clubs — the Ukrainian Society and the Orthodox Christian Fellowship — partnered to host Sergei Chapnin, co-founder of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham, for a talk discussing the role of Orthodox Christianity in the Russo-Ukrainian War. The talk was moderated by his fellow co-founder, George Demacopoulos, Ph.D. The discussion began by providing necessary historical context to the situation; religious revival — i.e. the rebirth of Orthodox Christianity — began after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was when people “came to church and came to

Christ,” said Chapnin. “But then something broke down.”

This was the case for all postSoviet states. The region experienced a literal fall from grace as a result of lingering pro-Soviet sentiment, a state which because of its communist structure was secular by default.

“We underestimate the influence of Soviet culture, tradition and ideology,” said Chapnin.

Its exact pervasiveness became apparent when Crimea was annexed in 2014: Russia wished to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Orthodox Christianity.

The Orthodox Church would not survive if it was disconnected from the state, according to Chapnin.

Additionally, he described the Russo-Ukrainian war as “metaphysical,” stating that

Russia believes it is a symbolic struggle between good and evil.

“The mission of Russia is to free Ukraine from dark forces and reunite them with Russia,” said Chapnin. The problem starts at the root, with the fact that Russia imagines themselves as a force of good will.

Reflecting on the state of politics in Ukraine, he believed that Ukrainian society is united against Russian troops, but remains fractured spiritually as a consequence of Russian aggression.

In his final remarks connecting the tenets of orthodoxy and war, particularly in the context of Russia and Ukraine, Chapnin commented that “righteousness is about

telling the truth,” and stated that “the truth is that Russia is the aggressor.”

Harry Parks, FCRH ’24, president of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, said that this talk was first conceived during last spring semester, shortly after the Ukrainian Society received club status. Initial pitches were made over the summer, and they eventually received approval to host the event in the fall.

“This event was important to organize for students especially because I have always found that

there have been few academic talks at Fordham that are specifically geared to students and not experts,” said Parks.

“I think there was a need to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the broader picture in relation to religion and politics in Ukraine and Russia.

I personally think context is always vital to obtaining a nuanced understanding of contemporary events and issues and without the context of religion, specifically Orthodox Christianity, in Ukraine and Russia.”

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Demacopoulos (left) and Chapnin (right) pictured at the discussion on Oct. 11.

“Banned! A History of Censorship” Exhibit in Walsh Library

By JULIANNA MORALES CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Walsh Library on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus has been home to many special exhibits curated by university personnel to spotlight and educate on a variety of topics. “Banned! A History of Censorship” is a current exhibit that opened Sept. 20, 2023, and will remain available to visit through March 15, 2024.

The Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University explains book banning as “a form of censorship [which] occurs when private individuals, government officials, or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists, or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas, or themes.” Recently in the United States, there has been a lot of news about the banning of books addressing topics such as Black history, Judaism

and the Holocaust and LGBTQ+ topics. However, this is far from the first experience of book banning.

“Banned! A History of Censorship” allows visitors to learn about the history of book banning, practices and methods of censorship, and how censored works have been able to fight through.

Due to Fordham’s religious affiliation as a Catholic and Jesuit university, the university was obligated to abide by the Index of Prohibited Books until 1966 when it was abolished. This means that less than 60 years ago, Fordham would not have been able to provide an exhibit like this. Included in the exhibit is more information as to how Fordham in particular handled books included in the Index. Professor Magda Teter, the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies for Fordham and a curator of the exhibit, explained that the Index of Prohibited Books was “a tool of control over which books could

be read by Catholics,” explaining that the list initially banned works by Luther, Calvin, Erasmus and other books that were thought to lead to heresy but was later expanded to include far more works of religion, philosophy and literature.

The exhibit shows historic book bans and acts of censorship such as books that were burned by the Nazis and the books listed on the Index before its abolition. However, the exhibit also contains information on the current acts of censorship occurring throughout the country. Additionally, throughout the research it was discovered that many important books for classes in European history and literature, including books on the syllabi of Fordham’s required core classes, were at one point banned by the Index of Prohibited Books.

These include the works of John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. The exhibit developed throughout its research period to reach its final fruition as a conceptualization of the long history of book banning and censorship at Fordham University, as well as across the United States and the world.

Teter also explained that the exhibit has been two years in the making. Three students worked as research interns for the team: Samantha Sclafani, FCLC ’22, Kevin Bogucki, FCLC ’23, and Hannorah Ragusa, FCRH ’26. They worked on researching, writing label drafts, layout and telling the story alongside university staff.

When asked what she hopes that students get out of the exhibit, Teter answered, “As this exhibit demonstrates, cultural, religious, and moral values are never static. They change over time. If some books

and ideas become acceptable, others might become abhorrent. We hope viewers will ask themselves: Should all books and ideas be freely accessible at all times? Are there or should there be limits of censorship or limits to access to knowledge?”

The exhibit is open to alumni, faculty/staff, parents, students and the public. The exhibit is located in the main exhibition hall on the first floor of Walsh Library, as well as in the Special Collections on the fourth floor. The Walsh Library collaborated with the Center for Jewish Studies.

Generous donations to the Center for Jewish Studies at Fordham allowed for the lecture series and student research involved with the exhibit to occur. Anyone interested in seeing the exhibit and learning more about censorship throughout history should be sure to check it out while it is still available.

NEWS

Page 6

October 25, 2023

Fordham Reacts to Conflict in Gaza Strip FROM GAZA, PAGE 1

settlements.”

In response, Israel has launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip — with the support of the United States — and killed over 5,000 Palestinians. Gaza is the largest city in Palestine.

“An estimated 1 million people have been displaced in Gaza in one week,” said Juliette Touma, representing the U.N. in speaking to the Associated Press.

John Entelis, Ph.D, professor of political science and Middle East studies, provided necessary historical background for understanding the conflict in full and the events earlier this October.

“The modern political Zionist concept was conceived in Europe with Theodor Herzl in the mid1800s,” said Entelis, “which finally gets transported to Palestine when the British have the mandate [sic] over Palestine after World War I.” Herzl worked in Vienna as a journalist and witnessed rampant antisemitism, which pushed him to conceive the idea of a Jewish state. He published a pamphlet — “Der Judenstaat” — which is now considered a foundational text of modern Zionism.

“Israel happens to hold valuable resources like oil and gas and has key strategic waterways like the Suez Canal,” said Entelis. This made the land on which Israel was founded to be very valuable when considering the prospect of the location for a Jewish state.

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was born in November 1947, which recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states on the Southern Levant. The competing interests of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism provoked a strong response from both sides. Jewish representatives supported the idea while Palestinians and other Arab states voiced sincere opposition. The plan was never fully realized, as a civil conflict broke out amongst Palestine in the days following the official vote.

In 1948, the Arab-Israeli war began, wherein 700,000 Palestinians were displaced to neighboring Arab states and across the world. This became known as the “Nakba,” meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic.

In the news today, the events happening in Gaza are considered reminiscent of the struggle in 1948.

Israel was established in May 1948 and the United States recognized the fledgling nation on the same day.

“After 1967, [...] the Palestinians go on their own and engage in [sic] what was then labeled as terrorist acts,” said Entelis. “Kidnapping, hijacking planes, the Munich massacre during the 1972 Olympics… the balance between the established Arab states and Palestinian self-determination shifted because the Palestinians wanted to determine their own fate.”

On the other hand, Jewish settlers viewed Israel as their only safe haven. Jewish people have historically been “othered” in Western society — with the most drastic example being the Holocaust — but antisemitism has existed before and and continues to exist after the World War II genocide.

“The Israelis view their situation as fundamentally existential,” said Entelis. “They think: ‘we either stay here or we disappear.’”

The most commonly proposed solution to the issue of Israel and Palestine has been the two-state solution. The idea was conceived in the Oslo Accords, which was a pair of agreements that ascertained Palestinian right to self-determination (i.e. the right for Palestinians to have their own state), the Palestinian right to return (i.e. the right for Palestinian refugees to return to present-day Israel) and the evacuation of Israeli military from Palestinian territory to give way to democratic Palestinian elections.

These agreements also maintained the borders of the existing Israeli state.

Both Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization — the official representative group for Palestine — agreed upon the terms.

The first agreement was signed in 1993 and the second in 1995; shortly after, however, Israeli president Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a far-right Israeli extremist. His death is considered to be representative of the death of a possible twostate solution, in part because the current prime minister — Benjamin Netanyahu — has been against the Oslo Accords since their inception and remains reluctant in the face of two-state proposals.

Entelis cited Netanyahu as

“central to the problem” in the way of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. “He is the one who embedded this arrogance and [dehumanization] of Palestinians into Israel.”

Furthermore, Entelis explained that the emergence of Hamas and their rise to power is not because of a Palestinian sympathy with terrorism, but rather a “discontent with their political leaders” amongst Palestinians.

“The Muslim brotherhood appeal is often by default, rather than by design,” said Entelis.

“Nobody says ‘I can’t wait to be governed by religious fanatics.’

But if they’re honest, and they try, they seem better than the alternative.” According to Entelis, Hamas, like its Lebanese counterpart Hezbollah, began as a legitimate political organization which sought to give a voice to their countries’ most oppressed peoples.

This brings us to the present day, where Israelis and Palestinians have sat at a stalemate for several years until the events of Oct. 7. Opinion amongst faculty and students vary greatly.

“It's always been a case of occupation, case of apartheid for the past 75 years,” said the president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — who chose to only go by their title. “Our club has been dedicated to generally educating people on Palestine and committing to direct action when it comes to Palestinian mobilization and fighting for Palestinian human rights.”

SJP has been at Fordham Lincoln Center for nearly a decade now, but it was only recognized as a club for one of those years. It faced a five-year legal battle due to Fordham administrators vetoing the student government’s decision to recognize the club, which resulted in Fordham students suing the school over the decision in 2017.

The court originally ruled that Fordham should recognize SJP as an official club in 2019, and the club officially operated for a year. When Fordham appealed the decision in 2020, the decision was reversed in court, thus banning SJP again as an official club.

Since the beginning of the conflict on Oct. 7, SJP’s president

said that there has been more mobilization regarding how students want to involve themselves in the club. Most recently, the graduate students at Lincoln Center were approved to have their own SJP club. Currently, Fordham’s Rose Hill campus has Advocates for Palestinian Perspective.

In regards to Fordham’s reaction to recent events, SJP’s president said that SJP does not agree with President Tetlow’s statement on the recent conflict.

“It frames Muslims — it frames Palestinians as being entirely Muslim, as Muslims being sort of intrinsically tied to Palestine.

Also, [it] implies — some people have viewed this — but it implies that Muslims might feel collective blame or guilt for what’s happening in Palestine. That’s not necessarily how we should be looking to the situation,” SJP’s president said.

SJP’s president added that Fordham is not doing enough to educate students, even in Middle East classes. They explained that they wanted to major or minor in Middle Eastern Studies, but one of their first required classes showed anti-Palestinian films and rhetoric.

“I feel like even the disallowing of an SJP to exist in a campus is inherently promoting ignorance within the school — inherently promotes the status quo, if not the status quo, then Israel to dominate over the Middle East and the Palestinian territories,” they said.

Overall, SJP’s president emphasized that the administrators need to take more steps to be fully aware of the situation.

“But it really is up to the decision of the administrators if they continue to want to be in the dark about what’s happening in the Middle East, you know, so I would recommend to them if they are interested in letting us or letting you know their student body actually learned something about Palestine, learn something about conflict, learn something about decolonization in history, is to allow a Palestinian club, allow Palestinians, to speak on Palestine,” SJP’s president said.

Magda Teter, the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies, and Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D, honor the

complexity of the situation and are dedicated to helping to educate the Fordham community.

They cited that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a story of “the protagonists are vying [sic] for the same piece of real estate,” but there are the nuances of “religion, politics, and historical narratives.”

Reflecting on the events that unfolded on Oct. 7, Teter said that “Hamas was clearly preparing for the attack for a long time, and it was the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.” She emphasized how extremists such as Hamas disrupt any peace initiatives and efforts towards solutions, such as the two-state solution.

In the past couple of years, there has been a change in dialogue amongst the Arab states; more of them, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan, have recognized Israel and fortified diplomatic relations between their governments. However, as Israel moves to bolster their army in the wake of the events on the Gaza Strip, these partnerships have been placed on hold.

The Center for Jewish Studies, in addition to providing a minor in Jewish Studies and supporting Fordham’s Jewish students, have a surplus of resources for education on the ongoing conflict.

“Over the years, we have held many events about Israel-Palestine, Arab-Jewish relations and history, and Israel,” said Teter.

These events date back as far as 2016 and as recent as this year.

Some recordings can be found on the Center for Jewish Studies’ YouTube channel. The Center also released a list of resources on their blog last Sunday. This is in an effort to broaden the community's knowledge of not only what is happening in Gaza, but the historical context of Israel and Palestine’s decades-long struggle for mutual self-determination. The conflict between Israel and Hamas remains ongoing and the death toll on both sides continues to rise.

The United Nations — as well as many politicians — are calling for an immediate ceasefire, except for the United States, who continue to supply the Israeli Defense Force with weapons.

“Some people have made comparisons with the origin of World War I,” said Entelis. “We’re not there yet — and hopefully we don’t get there.”

Senior Week Committee Hosts “Oktoberfest”

By MICHAEL DUKE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Rose Hill Senior Week Committee hosted their second annual Oktoberfest event on Thursday, Oct. 13.

Following the first Senior Week’s event of the year, Senior Toast, the Oktoberfest event was an opportunity for current seniors to reflect on their time at Fordham, connect and network with other seniors and celebrate the rest of the year ahead.

The event was filled with food, drinks and an Oktoberfest theme, which attracted 544 seniors underneath the bleachers at Moglia Stadium, the primary venue where most Senior Week events are held.

Students could be seen dressed in their finest lederhosen and dirndl celebrating the occasion to the fullest extent as they ate

bratwurst and pretzels and the ambiance of the Bavarian-inspired event.

Matthew Reese, GSB ’24, the Senior Week operation’s co-chair, commented on Senior Week’s success so far by saying that the committee “wants seniors to attend these events.” He added, “We want it to be well attended and enjoy the moment where you get to go to social events and career-building opportunities while simultaneously enjoying the last year of undergrad.”

With the event being focused on seniors, it echoed the sentiment that the Senior Week Committee holds that senior year is the most valuable year to make the most out of the community and immediate connections within the senior year class before moving on into the workforce or graduate school.

On Oct. 27, the committee will

be holding a Resume Workshop in conjunction with the Career Center. The primary purpose of many of the events that the Senior Week committee puts on is to give tips and tricks to set seniors apart from others in job searches.

Working closely with the Office of Student Involvement (OSI) and the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA), the conjunction between the three campus groups led to the success of the second annual hosting of this event, with Leigh Marie Weber, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, having worked closely with the 2023-24 Senior Week Coordinators, such as the committee’s Nights Coordinator Kylie Webb, FCRH ’24, to put on the event.

Weber said, “This year it seemed to have done very well, and we’re excited for the next event.”

As Senior Week partnered with OMA to put on the Oktoberfest event, the conjunction between these two groups embodied the values that OMA holds and strives to instill in their programs and offerings to students.

On OMA’s website, it says, “The Office of Multicultural Affairs is dedicated to developing and implementing university-wide programs and initiatives aligned with diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Students that get involved with OMA are able to enhance their multicultural and intercultural competency by actively learning how to be leaders in a diverse society.”

With nearly a month of planning ahead for this event, the

success of both this event and Senior Toast shines a light forward and into future events’ successes as student interest and engagement in activities put on by the Senior Week Committee remains strong and is growing.

With this being the “first real event of the year,” as Reese stated to the Ram, the confirmed date of Senior Week’s next major event to come is Nov. 9.

Though finalized details were not disclosed to the Ram about the event. Seniors can expect to attend an event under the bleachers with a similar style and feel to the Oktoberfest event.

In terms of future events to come, seniors are urged to check their emails for updates on events that the Senior Week Committee is holding.

OPINION

October 25, 2023

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 every Wednesday during the academic year to all campuses.

Website TheFordhamRam.com Email Address theram@fordham.edu Editor in Chief Isabel Danzis Managing Editor Sebastian Diaz Editorial Director Jamison Rodgers Production Editor Michael Sluck Multimedia Director Frances Schnepff Business Director Matthew Colucci Copy Chief Hannah Boring Assistant Copy Chief Sophia Forlenza News Editor Emma Kim Features Editor Samantha Minear Assistant News Editors Sofia Donohue Grace Galbreath Opinion Editor Nicole Braun Assistant Opinion Editors Evan McManus Allison Schneider Culture Editors Kari White Ilaina Kim Assistant Culture Editor Lauren Lombardi Sports Editors Nick Guzman Maddie Bimonte Assistant Sports Editor Lou Orlando Social Media Director Rory Donahue Digital Producers Ava Carreiro Julia Ocello Grace Campbell Claire Krieger Video Editor Skylar Harris Photo Editor Alexandra Antonov Advertising Directors Kathleen Hollinger Grace Miller Faculty Advisor Beth Knobel Editorial Policy The Fordham Ram’s editorial reflects the editorial board’s opinions or views.

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

Page 7

From the Desk | Matthew Colucci

Lessons From The Ram: Just Smile & Wave I’ve always been against sappy goodbye articles due to my terminally sarcastic personality. However, I think my journey with the Ram is extremely unique and might inspire at least one person reading this to follow in my footsteps. Whenever people think of the Ram, the last thing they think of is business. As a freshman at the club fair, I was just as clueless as everyone else. I had finally arrived at the Ram stand after perusing the gym for a few hours. Everyone already started packing up, and all that was left was a flier for The Fordham Ram Business Team. I had no idea that it was for a newspaper, but I decided to send them an email regardless.

A few weeks later, I attended the first business team meeting with the previous Business Director, Aidan Youngs, and a few other returning members. We did a quick icebreaker and then went over the merchandise project that was continued from the previous semester. At this point, I still had no idea that I was attending a meeting for a newspaper, but the quote that my dad branded into my head was, “Just smile and wave boys.

Smile and wave,” from the movie “Madagascar.” So that’s exactly what I did. I sat in a meeting with people I didn’t know to work on a project I knew nothing about.

Not a single original thought was produced besides, “Yeah that sounds great!” when asked about my opinions on tote bags.

I left the meeting feeling excited to finally be a part of something

related to my major and couldn’t wait for the next meeting. A few weeks went by without another business team meeting, and then I ran into Aidan and another member at the school gym to find out that there was an issue with the email list and that I missed every meeting since the first one. With that issue solved, I was able to attend two more meetings before staff applications rolled around.

There were two options to apply for, Business Director or Advertising Staff. Naturally, I chose Advertising Staff as a young, humble freshman.

It wasn’t until the day before my interview that I found out exactly what The Fordham Ram is. After a simple Google search, I concluded that The Fordham Ram Business Team wasn’t an independent studentrun marketing club. In fact, it was the school’s longest running student journal. With this new discovery, I knew that I had lost the job before I even interviewed for it. However, I had previously worked as a caddy for four years and specialized in the art of getting my nose brown.

Interviews for staff positions were held on Zoom, and this was my very first interview as a college student. I went through the interview making up stories and ideas of how to improve the Ram and the business team. Even with my background, I could tell that they knew I was clueless. I proceeded to close my laptop after the interview and do the Charlie Brown

walk to my room.

A few weeks later, I received an email from the Editor in Chief that listed the new staff positions similar to how a middle school announces roles in the school play.

It had names listed next to the corresponding positions, and if you didn’t see your name, you didn’t get the part. I scrolled down the email to see that my name was placed next to the Business Director role. In pure disbelief, I shut my laptop and called my dad to ask him what to do. To no surprise, he said, “Just smile and wave.”

The point of this story isn’t to convey the idea that you can be lucky and obtain a leadership position in which you have little to no experience in, but it’s a story that will hopefully encourage you to pursue something even if you have no idea what’s going on.

During my two years as the Ram’s Business Director, I have learned so much from professors,

students, local business owners and other journals that I would have never had the opportunity to encounter without my position in the Ram. This position alone has landed me two other e-board positions, a job, an internship and a spot on the Rambearables’ intramural volleyball roster. I can safely say that up to this point, I have learned more about myself and this world from being involved in activities outside of class than I have in the classroom. A majority of my professional experiences and personal relationships have stemmed from this fortunate happenstance, and I will continue to walk blindly down different paths.

I strongly encourage everyone reading this silly story to care about everything you do, or at least act like you care because you never know where it might lead you.

Or to put it more simply, in the wise words of Skipper, “Just smile and wave boys. Smile and wave.”

Editorial | N.Y. Migrant Crisis

The American Dream, New York’s Nightmare In late August, Governor Kathy Hochul expanded the executive order that gives New York more leeway in responding to the ongoing migrant crisis caused by the increased population of asylum seekers in the state. This expansion allows the state to quickly access funds to support the arrival of more people and buy necessary food and supplies. Aside from allowing officials to quickly access funds, more funding in general has also been allocated to the already $1.5 billion investment to help cover legal services, housing costs and healthcare expenses for the migrants that arrive in New York.

While New York State is doing all they can to handle the influx of migrants, from increasing funding to finding innovative ways to house more people, including contemplating turning cruise ships into temporary shelter, Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, has been very vocal of the city not being able to continue to support this level of new arrivals without federal aid. In the past, he has criticized President Joe Biden and Hochul for not sending more funding to New York City and for not expediting worker visas for the migrants that arrive. Adams left New Yorkers with the pessimistic view that without intervention, “this issue will destroy New York City.” It is projected that there will be a $12 billion deficit in the city’s budget

as a result of responding to this crisis.

In the wake of the mayor’s comments, Republican politicians have taken this as an opportunity to praise Adams for criticizing Biden in terms of immigration and have used these comments to fuel their own criticism for not having harsher border control policies. Republican New York Representative Nick LaLota has even urged Adams to further his comments into action by repealing New York City’s mandate to shelter all migrants who arrive in the city.

Immigration advocates were left less than pleased with the mayor’s remarks and brought to attention New York’s long standing history as being a city that welcomed immigrants to the U.S. through Ellis Island. Adams creating this harmful narrative that migrants will destroy New York alienates this community from the city at large and ushers in hateful rhetoric and discriminatory policies against migrants.

It is not fair to villainize a group of people who are fleeing violent and tumultuous situations. Or people simply accepting the message fed to them of the American Dream that Americans love to tout, but never actually support people trying to achieve this dream. What is the difference between a busload of migrants arriving to New York from Latin America escaping violence in

hopes of finding a better life to a shipload of Irish immigrants escaping famine also in search of a better life? New York has always been a city composed of immigrant populations from all over the world. So, what has changed?

It is fine to recognize that there is a financial obstacle to upholding the values of this sanctuary city. It is not fine to recognize and point out this obstacle by placing blame on people simply trying to find a better life. Instead of complaining about the financial hurdles the city now needs to face in order to live out those espoused values, spend that time actually finding a viable solution.

As a whole, the U.S. needs to reevaluate our immigration laws to more effectively support the new landscape of immigration.

At the moment, work visas can’t be obtained until six months after applying for asylum. Asylum courts are backed up, causing people to wait four to five years for their hearing. In New York, single adults are being asked to

vacate their shelter, protected under the right to shelter laws in the city, after 60 days. These are all areas that need improving to better support our migrant communities.

While Biden has turned around some of Trump’s immigration policies including reuniting some families who were previously separated at the border and implementing a new family reunification program for Ecuadorians, there is still a way to go. Clearly, policies have to change to better support the influx of migrants to the U.S. What should not happen is creating stricter immigration laws and narrowing pathways to the U.S. The U.S. has always been a country made up of immigrants.

And while the countries people are immigrating from have changed through the centuries, the discrimination and hate has not. It is time for the U.S., and New York specifically, to change their ways and live up to the values they preach.

OPINION

Page 8

October 25, 2023

Commander Biden: From White House to Dog House

By HAILEY BAKER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

President Joe Biden’s twoyear-old German Shepherd Commander was banished from the White House after the 11th known biting incident. While not officially confirmed, certain sources like CNN suggest that the actual number of incidents may be even higher. One of these incidents even resulted in a hospitalization when the dog unprovokedly bit a Secret Service agent’s arm and thigh.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than 4.5 million people in the United States are bitten by dogs every year. Dogs bite for a multitude of reasons, but most commonly as a reaction to something, such as stressful or scary situations. Dogs also bite if they feel threatened, to protect something valuable, if they are sick or injured and do not want to be bothered or while playing.

Although all dog breeds can bite, German Shepherd bites are notably dangerous. Based on a study from 2019, the American Animal Hospital Association listed German Shepherds as one of the six breeds with the most dangerous bites. They have a bite force of 238 pound force per square inch (PSI), whereas humans only have a bite

force of 162 PSI. This makes Commander’s biting incidents even more of a concern for the safety of White House staff members.

As the residence and workplace of the president, the White House sets the precedent for work environments nationwide. Secret Service agents detailed Commander’s behavior as aggressive, with six out of the 11 confirmed incidents being significant bites that required medical attention. While federal law protects Secret Service agents who are federally employed by requiring organizations to “establish and maintain an effective and comprehensive occupational safety and health program” and to report “occupational accidents and injuries annually to the secret of the Labor,” these incidents still create an unsafe working environment. For any job, let alone one that entails protecting the president, dog bites should not have to be a concern.

The White House announced in a statement to POLITICO that the Bidens are partnering with the Secret Service and Executive Residence to establish leash protocols, training and creating designated areas for Commander to exercise.

While this is a step in the right direction, the Bidens should have done more to address

the issue promptly. They had other incidents with their previous dog Major, who also perpetrated multiple biting incidents in the White House.

After Major bit two people — a Secret Service agent and a National Park Service worker — the Bidens moved him to Wilmington, Del., to receive further training. However, Major never returned to the White House and now lives with family friends.

After the incidents with Commander, the Bidens removed him from the White House as well, and sent him to an unknown location while determining the next steps. In Washington, D.C., the mayor can elect for a dangerous dog to be “humanely destroyed” when necessary. A dangerous dog entails any dog that “chases or menaces a person or domestic animal in an aggressive manner, causing an injury to a person or domestic animal that is less severe than a serious injury,” or “in a menacing manner, approaches without provocation any person or domestic animal as if to attack, or has demonstrated a propensity to attack without provocation or otherwise to endanger the safety of human beings or domestic animals.”

While Commander has attacked White House staff members unprovoked, it is important to investigate the

COURTESY OF TWITTER

The Bidens should have taken action before the 11th biting incident.

particular environments and situations of the attacks and give him more training before doing anything drastic. The safety and comfortability of the White House staff members needs to be the priority though. It needs to be the responsibility of the owners, the Bidens, to make sure their dogs do not pose a threat to other people, especially those working for them.

The Bidens’ decision to work with the Secret Service and Executive Residence to establish leash protocols, training and designated areas for Commander to exercise highlights their eagerness to address the issue. Training and responsible pet ownership can often mitigate aggressive behavior in dogs, although the Bidens should have learned to set these protocols before any incidents

occur from their experience with Major. With the overarching precedent the White House sets for workplaces across the United States, safety is a crucial concern, and every effort should be made to keep employees out of harmful situations.

The Bidens’ commitment to addressing Commander’s aggressive behavior is noteworthy because waiting 11 incidents to remove him and actively work to solve the issue underscores the importance of proactive measures and responsible pet ownership. This situation emphasizes the need for early intervention and the establishment of clear protocols before concerns arise.

Hailey Baker, FCRH ’27, is a political science major from Gaithersburg, Md.

OPINION

October 25, 2023

Page 9

Bridging the Gap Between Commuters and Campus

By HANIYYAH USMANI CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Thinking of the college experience brings to mind an image of students in dorms, spending time with other residents until late at night and maybe forming study sessions of the same nature. It calls to mind meal plans and exploring the new city they find themselves in and creating new memories.

All of this is great and pretty accurate, but something is missing in this picture: the commuters. We’re there as well, although it may seem like we’re never around.

Perhaps you see us leaving and entering campus based on our schedules, or maybe we’ve politely declined your offer to hang out because the timing on that day just didn’t work for us. From our perspective, it’s nice to be able to go home whenever we want, and to be able to have a college experience without the seeming downsides, like dealing with oncampus food and having issues with RAs in their dorms. On an individual level, it’s quite a peaceful experience, because we’re able to get the best of both worlds; I absolutely love being a commuter. On another note, there’s something endearing about seeing others enter the city we’ve been calling home all our lives and being so enamored by everything.

Commuters and residents

have contrasting views on different topics, though.

Some of their struggles are our comforts, and sometimes vice versa. Take for example, the dread, complaints and pain residents go through just at the idea of an 8:30 a.m. class. It’s the worst ever. On the other hand, 8:30 classes for commuters are no big deal; it feels like just another school day. Joanne Pan, GSB ’27 (and fellow commuter) says “I prefer 8:30 classes because I would rather wake up early and finish the class so I can have the rest of my day to do whatever I want, like studying and hanging out with friends.” This approach of treating college classes like regular school is often a popular opinion.

Of course, students who are dorming know they’re close to their classes so it adds to this sense of sluggishness, because they know they can really wait until the last moment and still make it on time. You hear of resident students waking up at 8:05 a.m. for their 8:30s, while commuters wake up at 6 or 7 a.m., as usual. We know that no matter what mode of transport we take, it still takes time so we’re up immediately and on the go. It sets the tone nicely for the rest of the day; an early start allows for more time to utilize every minute.

Another prominent issue for students who dorm is the

dining hall food. Complaints are popular, and although it might not be bad for the first few times, having to live on it is unimaginable. Dorming means you’re forced to have a meal plan, and while you can use them at any oncampus dining location, it’s not always the best choice.

Being a commuter, we don’t need meal plans, and if we want to eat on campus, we can choose to spend as much or as little as we want, without worrying about how many meal passes are being used. However, this is where commuter complaints start.

There’s a meal plan for commuters, but the majority of us do not consider it because of the cost. Sometimes, I wish every commuter had a few meal passes to use, but such is not the case. Speaking of costs, commuters who drive to school also need to pay a high price for parking, which results in trying hard to park outside (highly unrealistic if you’re familiar with the school’s surrounding areas), or paying even more for a coupon book that doesn’t cover much. It’s little things like this that make being a commuter harder, instead of being supported.

The Commuting Student Association (CSA) makes college life better for commuter students by speaking on issues we face, like a lack of access to residence halls, access to dining halls and an altered orientation

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Commuter’s experince at Fordham differs from residents.

schedule that is more commuter-friendly. I joined CSA for this exact reason, and seeing the struggle behind just bringing about awareness on these issues is pretty concerning, but our determination is strong, so I have hope that things will get better. All these problems come down to one conclusion: the fact that commuters are shoved under the same umbrella of policies that apply to everyone else. The line separating us as a separate category of students isn’t something to be blurred, and yet that’s what happens.

Take, for example, the inclement weather warnings that were given by the city a few weeks ago and how it was deemed dangerous to leave home. Fordham refused to cancel classes, forcing commuter students to travel across the city and face the worsening conditions outside of campus. The subways had been flooded that day, with major train delays and water pouring out from the

literal walls. Driving that day wasn’t safe either; traffic was insane, causing students to run late, forcing them to have to speed through the steadily flowing water just to be able to get to class on time. It was really rough, and we should have been able to stay home. In some cases, these efforts were in vain because as soon as you got to campus, you found out class was either canceled or over Zoom; there was no point in coming.

Life is hard here and there, and so is the case for both commuters and residents.

Both have their pros and cons, balancing each other out. The best thing to know is that solutions for commuter problems actually exist, so hopefully that gap is bridged soon. If the administration finally remembers that we are not the same, our college experience might just be comparable.

Haniyyah Usmani, FCRH ’27, is undecided from Bronx, N.Y.

W

Current Grant Approval Process Needs Reform

By SAISHA ISLAM STAFF WRITER

This year’s Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Drs. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for discovering the use of mRNA for vaccines. Their important discovery allowed the creation of the Pfizer-Biotech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, which according to Vox, “in the US alone… prevented over 3 million deaths and 18 million hospitalizations and saved more than $1 trillion.” Yet, the road to this groundbreaking research was paved with challenges and unnecessary hardships from universities and grant committees.

If Karikó and Weissman hadn’t been as committed and hardworking as they are, the research needed to create the COVID-19 vaccine wouldn’t be available and there wouldn’t be millions of lives saved as a result.

This brings up the questions of whether the current scientific grant system is good at what it does or whether it prevents future innovative research and what could improve this system.

Karikó immigrated to the United States in 1985 as a postdoctoral student in Philadelphia where she

faced problems with deportation due to claims made by a coworker after she received a new job offer. She started working at University of Pennsylvania in 1989 and was on a course to become a tenured professor, but her focus on mRNA was not seen as something important or fundable. For researchers, it is important to apply for grants for funding and “if you’re not doing research, you need to teach or work with patients.” But there are biases in the current grant system which make it harder for researchers to get grants, especially if they aren’t tenured or if they went to a foreign university. Grants are also given to research which is believed to be more important and profitable later on, and ideas such as Karikó and Weissman’s which don’t meet this standard are ignored and denied funding.

Weissman and Karikó’s research also had a harder time of being published in larger, more well-known academic journals. It is astounding to think that if not for the grit of the two scientists, then the race to make a COVID-19 vaccine would’ve been even longer than expected, meaning thousands of more people could have

been hospitalized or dead.

In 1995, Karikó was demoted by Penn and she joined Weissman’s lab which was also doing work with RNA, specifically how it relates to an HIV vaccine. This wasn’t the end of academic struggles as Penn made two patents and licensed Karikó and Weissman’s work from a small company they created called RNAx. Eventually, Penn kicked Karikó out and she was “forced to retire,” but she found a job at BioNTech which required her “commuting to and from Germany.” While the struggles Karikó and Weissman faced seems to make the victory of their Nobel Prize sweeter, it isn’t something that scientists should have to face to get their work funded or published. It is very ironic that the University of Pennsylvania affiliates themselves with Karikó and Weissman’s victory despite all the struggles it put them through in their research.

While the current scientific grant system attempts to sort out which research is good for funding and has impact for the future, it has its disparities and blindspots, which is seen with Karikó and Weissman’s work. While the mRNA technology was

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Nobel Prize winner faced challenges with her mRNA grant.

deemed as something not significant for the future or worth funding, its use has ended up saving many lives during the pandemic, something which was unexpected. This shows how there has to be alterations to the system since it doesn’t seem to predict what research will have an impact in the future as well as it thinks it does. Additionally, the current system is rigid and prevents researchers from taking risks which could lead to world-changing discoveries in fear of not getting funding or being demoted. Getting grants also seems to be a biased process in which tenured professors and researchers who went to Ivy League universities seem to have an easier time getting

grants than researchers at other universities.

Possible alternatives to the grant system could include foundations or lotteries for research which have a harder time gaining grants. There should also be less emphasis in the grant system on punishing imperfect results or taking a long time to get results. Overall, this year’s recipients for the Nobel Prize in medicine shows the value of hard work and determination but also the pitfalls of the scientific grant system and the hardships of getting research published.

Saisha Islam, FCRH ’25, is a biology major from New York, N.Y.

OPINION

Page 10

October 25, 2023

The Catholic Church Must Evolve to Survive

By LUCA AMATURO

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The only way for the modern Catholic Church to survive within our progressive culture is if the church becomes more inclusive, moves away from its antiquated ideology and begins valuing the opinions and rights of everyone. Pope Francis is growing increasingly aware of the necessity of a more inclusive and progressive future for the church as he reformed the Vatican Summit, the Synod on Synodality. The current Synod, a summit to discuss the church’s future, is of particular importance as it will give bishops and, for the first time, non-ordained people and women voting power. A move towards an inclusive Synod where diverse voices will be heard is a beneficial step in the right direction towards a future Catholic Church that values the lives and rights of everyone equally.

In its current state, the Catholic Church remains rooted in its exclusionary attitude that continues to dissuade current and potential members from cherishing and celebrating their faith, especially in the United States. Issues of abortion, gay marriage and womens’ role in religion are neglected by the Catholic Church, and allowing for the status quo

to remain the same has left today’s youth disenchanted with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Instead of being a moral compass on how to create a more peaceful society, the antiquated nature of many moral decrees has turned people against each other. When a moral compass such as the Catholic Church is needed the most, it fails to promote the dogma it was founded upon. It becomes increasingly difficult to find value in an institution that preaches peace and love but can, at times, promote the opposite.

For the sake of the Catholic Church’s survival, they must begin amending their conservative stance on many issues that today’s youth deeply care about.

The Catholic Church is aware that it must not lag, or it will become an institution of the past. In his opening address, Pope Francis stated, “[the church] must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world which have opened new avenues to the catholic apostolate.”

Radical change to the institutions of the Catholic Church is approaching, and this current Synod is emblematic of Pope Francis’s desire and understanding that the church must modernize to include those who are too frequently excluded.

We live in a world full of people with different backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual orientations and cultures who all deserve to be cherished in the Catholic Church but can also provide immense value to the church’s goals with their various perspectives on life.

To continue basing the framework of a global moral institution off of the oppressive cultural values in the past neglects the New Testament scriptures where “the church prays and hopes for spiritual and systemic change.” Scriptures throughout the Old and New Testament acknowledge that humanity is an imperfect species and will always have to continue striving to create a more just, equitable and caring world. Certain aspects of the moral framework of the Catholic Church can be considered antiquated and unjust. That is okay; it is not an offense to the word of God or the teachings of Jesus. God understands that we are an imperfect species and knows that we will always be reconciling with our injustices and attempt to create a more just society. What matters is our ability to depart from exclusionary beliefs and values and always continue moving, in lockstep together, toward a Catholic Church that promotes justice and love.

The Catholic Church must

COURTESY OF TWITTER

The Catholic Church currently alientes progressives.

acknowledge its wrongs, especially against women and the LGBTQ+ community, and move to include these groups to counter oppression and create space for justice productively.

Progressive change to become more inclusive is not an indictment against the Catholic Church; rather, it brings life into an institution that is growing stagnant and losing its moral influence over younger generations. If the Catholic Church can become a progressive church and work to drop its antiquated values, it can shift from a church that excludes back to a church that provides hope and guidelines to achieve a world of love, kindness and respect. In a world that is growing increasingly uncertain with wars, global

pandemics and economic tu mult and slowly losing its moral compass, the Catholic Church can be a solution. It just needs to get out of its own way and step beyond a conservative mindset that has not evolved alongside society to include everyone because we all deserve to be part of God’s community.

This current Synod is the right first step towards the new future of the Catholic Church where, in the words of Pope Francis “tutti, tutti, tutti” — everyone, everyone, everyone — must be allowed to be part of the church.

Luca Amaturo, FCRH ’26, is a communications major from Marlboro, N.J.

Flooding Show Flaws in Fordham Admin

By LAILA SAYEGH

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Friday, Sept. 29, New York City was hit with massive amounts of heavy rain.

In certain areas of the city, up to six inches of rain flooded the streets, causing New York state to issue an emergency flash flood warning. On Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, many pathways were overwhelmed by the floods and certain buildings began to leak, making it almost impossible to safely and comfortably navigate the campus and attend classes. Yet, Fordham’s administration chose not to cancel classes for the day.

I believe that keeping the school open under these circumstances severely compromises the safety of many students. First, it is important to consider that approximately 40% of the undergraduate students at Fordham are commuters. Many commuter students either drive to school or utilize the public transportation system.

However, on Sept. 29, half of New York City’s mass transportation system was shut down because of the floods. Also, major roads surrounding the university were unsafe to drive on due to the downpour. It is not

fair for commuter students to be expected to promptly show up to class during a flash flood, because in many cases, they cannot take public transportation or drive through standing or running water. Administration and staff may experience similar troubles on their commutes to campus. To combat this problem, Fordham should cancel or virtualize all classes whenever there is a flash flood. Additionally, all administrative and club meetings should be canceled until further notice. If other staff members, such as the dining and custodial staff, have trouble commuting to campus, their tardiness or absence should be excused during severe weather conditions, such as a flash flood. While halting all of the school’s usual activities seems drastic, it is imperative that Fordham puts the safety of its staff and students first. Additionally, we are lucky enough to live in a digital age where it is easy to make up for lost class or meeting time virtually.

I also believe that Fordham should have a form of mass communication to alert all staff and students of specific procedures and measures that should be taken during severe weather. On Sept. 29

at 3:19 p.m., Fordham sent out a mass email warning everyone of the flooding and advising that they take caution. While this email was helpful in updating us on the status of the situation, I believe that we could have been updated earlier on what was going on. For reference, the City University of New York (CUNY) school system has a system called “CUNY Alert” which allows people to receive alerts via text or email regarding weather conditions and weather related closings on their campuses.

Implementing a system similar to this at Fordham can be beneficial because it will allow people to receive real time updates of what exactly is going on and the conditions of specific buildings on campus. For instance, updates on flooded buildings, broken elevators and canceled meetings. That way, staff and students can plan in advance how they will navigate campus in the most safe and efficient way during severe weather conditions.

It will allow students to receive updates via text, not just email. This will ensure that they will be sure to see the message and it won’t get lost within the many emails staff and students receive on a daily basis. Campus-wide

COURTESY OF TWITTER

The New York region faced severe flooding on Sept. 29.

safety is primarily supported by effective campus-wide communication. All staff and students should be in the know about the state of the campus and how they should alter their daily whereabouts in the event of an emergency.

Finally, in the long term, Fordham can update their sewer system and come up with some sort of flood control project, similar to that at University of Michigan. This can include installing new storm sewer lines or possibly finding space to insert a detention pond which can hold stormwater and runoff. To maximize the safety of our staff and students, it is also important that the university ensures that all underground or basemented areas on campus are adequately waterproofed. While this

may be a costly endeavor, given the trajectory of New York City’s weather pattern, these measures seem worthwhile to implement.

At its core, the excessive amount of flooding that has been occurring is directly a result of climate change.

For the time being, Fordham should promote an environmentally friendly campus to play a part in combating climate change, which is the primary cause of heavy rains. However, to prevent the issue of an unsafe campus due to flooding itself, canceling or making classes online, proper and frequent communication and campus renovations will suffice.

Laila Sayegh, FCRH ’27, is a political science major from Congers, N.Y.

October 25, 2023

CULTURE

Page 11

Who’s That Kid? | Riley Dominianni, FCRH ’24

Fordham Senior Curates Exhibitions for Ellis Island Museum

By ILAINA KIM CULTURE EDITOR

One can never expect a dull moment in the company of Riley Dominianni, FCRH ’24, a history and anthropology double major with an unabashed love for 1960s folk revival music, historical documentaries and timeless pieces of cinematography like “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” (not necessarily in that order). Hailing from Kalamazoo, Mich., Dominianni has certainly made colorful strides on the Rose Hill campus. This semester marks her third year serving on the e-board for Theory and Praxis, a social justice and leftist book club, as well as her second year as the Events and Publicity Coordinator for the Italian Heritage Club, Insieme.

On top of that, Dominianni is also a Research Assistant at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, a position that holds both personal and professional significance in her life.

Her eyes lit up when she spoke about the magic of the museum as a “site of memory for many people.” In fact, there was even something wonderfully serendipitous and sentimental about applying to the job itself — her cover letter submission fell exactly 100 years to the month after her greatgrandmother passed through Ellis Island from Calabria, Italy.

Those who spend time with Dominianni — even if it’s only

for a moment — are familiar with her personable and passionate disposition, qualities that also help her excel at work. Split between tending to customers’ individual needs and curating information for museum exhibits, the RA position is best-suited for the most affable of history experts, a description that immediately brings Dominianni to mind.

Three days a week she embarks on the trek to Ellis Island that entails a staggering three forms of transportation: the Bx9 bus takes her to the 4 train, where she stops at Battery Park to board the ferry.

But the commute is more than rewarding, and Dominianni chimed, “It’s very fun. People have all kinds of reaction and sometimes we help people find information about their family that they never knew about. About 40% of our country’s population can trace their ancestry to the island.

People want to know where they came from and how they got to where they are today.”

Beyond tracing visitors’ heritage, she also engages in independent research to contribute to museum content. “It’s a really cool feeling to do research and watch people read and experience the work I’ve done,” she beamed, going on to detail past and present projects.

“Royalty on Manifests” first came up in conversation, a display that showcased royal figures that passed through the U.S. as discovered by old newspaper

archives. Photographs of visiting nobility such as Russian princess Elena Tsouloukidze and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie adorned an illuminated backdrop flanked by news headlines and ship manifests, a document providing identification for respective passengers. The curation and display of the exhibition spoke to the multi-faceted history of the island as both an immigration processing station and major geographical check point for anyone passing through. Exhibits for German and Hispanic Heritage Month also augment the laundry list of Dominianni’s contributions, and presently she is working on “an exhibit focusing on Thanksgiving, specifically how immigrants and their families have shaped an American holiday.” Sharing a glimpse of the project, she cited NYC’s annual Thanksgiving Day Parade and revealed how Macy’s founder Isador Strauss actually immigrated from Germany and perished in the Titanic shipwreck. “The impact of immigrants often goes unnoticed,” she said, “which is the main theme of the exhibit.”

In a closing ode to journalism, Dominianni fondly recalled her work on The New York Times (NYT) Project last summer. By compiling every article written in the NYT related to immigration and Ellis Island from 1890-1930, she digitized archival material in the library to form an online database. When sifting through

articles from 1917-20, she noticed headlines tainted with the ever-looming Red Scare that detailed the deportation of communists and anarchists. The project revealed an intriguing counternarrative where people were funneled outside of the country rather than in, to which she stated, “It’s interesting to see how journalism has changed. General attitudes on immigration have changed as well. When nativism gained momentum, articles on immigration were a lot harsher.” Though the

project was primarily conceived for content purposes, Dominianni said she hopes the database will potentially aid visiting families in reconnecting with the passengers within the articles.

For those who wish to trace their family’s lineage, learn about the fascinating historical significance of Ellis Island or simply strike up conversation about anything under the sun, Dominianni’s infectious ardor is sure to leave a lasting impression that’s one for the history books.

COURTESY OF RILEY DOMINIANNI FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

Dominianni curated several fascinating exhibitions for visitors to enjoy.

“Javelin” and the Duality of Love and Loss

By KATHERINE LUSSEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Simply put, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with the music of Sufjan Stevens for the entirety of this past year — name a particular season, month or even a single day of 2023 and I’ll be able to tell you the exact Stevens song I had on repeat at that moment. When it was announced in August that Stevens would release a new album less than two months later, I could hardly contain my excitement. “Javelin,” released on Oct. 6, exceeds any possible expectations I could have dreamed up for a new Stevens album, an expansive and moving reflection on the multitudes of what it means to love and be loved.

“Goodbye Evergreen,” the opening track of “Javelin,” begins as if you’re sitting right next to Stevens at the piano: you can hear even the slightest of movement, from the pressing of the piano keys to the sound of Stevens’s breath against the microphone. The stripped back production slowly builds, confronting listeners with the weight of Stevens’s words: “something just isn’t right / a cut from the inside I’m frightened of the end / I’m drowning in my self defense.” As he contends with feelings of guilt and loss, the tension builds and breaks into an outpouring of emotion: a burst

of electronic drums, ghostly synthesizers and a choir of disparate voices echo Stevens’s refrain: “goodbye evergreen / you know I love you.” It seems as if we’re re-entering a certain place in time, swept up in the undulation of Stevens’s memories. Many of the songs on “Javelin” catch the listener in this way — “So You Are Tired” moves in a similar manner, beginning with a steady drone of piano and eventually crashing into a beautiful collage of strings, woodwinds and a choir of voices that complement Stevens’s devastating and lilting voice. Shifting between lovesick and bitter, Stevens pleads with his lost love directly, admitting, “I was the man still in love with you / when I already knew it was done.” Though fluid and full of life, there’s still a

deep sense of loss that permeates each song on “Javelin.”

Sonically, “Javelin” seamlessly melds together the many distinct eras of Stevens’s discography: there’s the melancholy and detached piano from “Carrie and Lowell,” buzzes of electronic instrumentation reminiscent of “The Age of Adz,” the brilliant flourishes of a full orchestra from “Illinois” and even a brief callback to “Seven Swans,” with the introduction of banjo on “Everything that Rises.”

One of the things that I love the most about Stevens’s music is the sheer magnitude of his compositions: every single choice is made with a sharp intention, whether it’s the sweeping movement of a symphony or the simplest addition of texture. “Shit Talk,” an eight-minute long epic, perfectly exemplifies this balance of space

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Stevens latest album is personal, vulnerable and a musical gift for fans.

— Stevens builds a well-oiled machine of interlocking parts, each entrance and exit of a secondary melody or atmospheric glimmer perfectly orchestrated to build up to a cathartic release. When he pulls back, it can be particularly affecting: “Javelin (To Have And To Hold),” running just under two minutes, is probably one of the most reserved gutpunches I’ve ever experienced in my life. Accompanied by muted picking, a soft hush of voices and a thin line of strings, Stevens parses through the guilt of unconsciously hurting the ones we love: “there’d be blood in the place where you stood / it’s a terrible thought to have and hold.”

Though “Javelin” largely centers around working through the difficulties of love, my favorite songs on the record are ones where Stevens indulges in his past memories of love. “A Running Start” begins with the image of a solitary Stevens looking out from a fire escape, contemplating the strangeness and newness of his feelings: “so now we have a running start / my body moves in mystic ways / I cross my arms to shield my heart / as everything turns into waves.” The possibility of love is ever-expanding, constantly growing in depth. “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” might be one of my absolute favorite Stevens songs of all time: the first

few lines see Stevens carefully reaching out to the world to open his heart back up to love: “run me over / throw me over / cast me out.” There’s a pulsing, urgent force that drives the song forward: the steady pluck of a banjo, the strained tone of Stevens’s voice, the beat of percussion and the light brush of piano building to a heavenly choir of voices and the fullness of strings and winds. The central question, “Will anybody ever love me? / for good reasons, without grievance / not for sport” is a lyric that has circled my brain ever since I first heard it; Stevens has the ability to pull an indescribable feeling from your chest, then put a name to it.

“Javelin” ends with a cover of Neil Young’s “There’s a World,” a surprisingly dark song made bright and hopeful by the sparse instrumentation and angelic voices of Stevens and his back-up singers. In light of recent news regarding Stevens’s health, I would be remiss not to say that it’s simply amazing to live in a world where a musician as generous and brilliant as Stevens can share such personal and vulnerable music with us, and that it wouldn’t be the same without him. “Javelin” is just one of many gifts he has offered in the last two decades of his career, and I urge you to listen if you haven’t had a chance yet.

CULTURE

Page 12

October 25, 2023

Film at Lincoln Center’s NYFF Features Diverse Lineup

By ALLISON MOFFITT CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In a year of ongoing strikes and increasing uncertainties facing the film industry, the 61st annual New York Film Festival (NYFF), which took place from Sept. 29 through Oct. 15, demonstrated that cinema continues to adapt and thrive despite an everchanging industry. In the absence of A-list red carpets and celebrity photo-ops, the films themselves could truly take center stage.

As one of the last major festivals of the year, the NYFF hosts few global premieres and instead showcases some of the biggest standouts from earlier festivals.

Because of this, the NYFF has cemented its status due to its impressive breadth of programming. This year’s festival featured nearly 100 films across its main slate, spotlight, revivals, currents and shorts sections.

The festival, produced by Film at Lincoln Center, took place just steps away from Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus. Satellite screenings were available across all five boroughs at locations like

the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Staten Island, Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and the Maysles Documentary Center in Central Harlem.

While premiere screenings give cinephiles early access to some of the most anticipated films of the year, revivals such as Jean Renoir’s “Woman on the Beach” and Les Blank’s seminal documentary “Burden of Dreams” keep the past alive by allowing audiences to view classics seldom screened in theaters. In addition to these screenings, the festival offered many free talks with filmmakers and creatives, such as poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado and renowned editor Sandra Adair.

The festival opened with the exciting North American premiere of Todd Haynes’s latest film, “May December.” The film stars Julianne Moore as Gracie and Charles Melton as Joe, her much younger husband whose relationship was once sensational tabloid fodder and is now being

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

The films featured in this year’s NYFF were incredibly diverse.

closely studied by actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) as she prepares to play Gracie in a film adaptation of their lives.

Other headlining films included “Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s biopic of Leonard Bernstein. Appropriately, “Maestro” is the first film to premiere at Lincoln Center’s newly renovated David Geffen Hall, which had been refitted with custom Dolby surround sound for optimal acoustics during the film, allowing audiences to fully appreciate the life and work of Bernstein in the location where he once worked.

Sofia Coppola’s highly anticipated “Priscilla” served as the festival’s centerpiece. Through the film, Coppola once again demonstrates her skills as an aesthetic auteur and master of creating intimate stories centering around the loneliness of girlhood within the trappings of gilded cages.

The festival came to a close with a screening of Michael Mann’s new film, “Ferrari,” which stars Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari in a thrilling yet elegant portrayal of the Italian car magnate’s personal and professional proceedings.

The family drama is also explored in astonishing depth in Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” which won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is now in regular screenings at Film at Lincoln Center. The film opens with protagonist, Sandra (Sandra Küller), a famous author who has made a career of telling stories inspired by her real life, conducting an interview in her family’s isolated home in the French Alps while upstairs, her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), blasts a cover of 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P. Later that day, while returning from a walk,

their blind young son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) discovers Samuel’s body sprawled in the snow, having fallen from a high window. The rest of the film follows Sandra’s trial as she is accused of being responsible for her husband’s death. However, “Anatomy” refuses to reduce itself to a simple procedural drama or murder mystery. Triet knows that the story’s truth is far more complex than a simple whodunnit. The film revels in its ambiguity, which, combined with Hüller’s absolutely phenomenal, lived-in performance, grounds Sandra and Samuel’s relationship in realism and leaves the audience with more questions than answers. How do we ever really know and trust our partners? Ourselves? When our feelings are all we have, are they enough to be the truth? In the autopsy of a relationship, is there ever a single cause of death?

Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest picture, “Poor Things,” based on Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, also made its U.S. debut at the festival. The film stars Emma Stone as a Frankenstein-esque, childlike woman who begins to reclaim her mind and body as she explores the world and her sexuality and learns the truth of her mysterious existence. Another Lanthimos and Stone collaboration, “Bleat,” which was also featured at this year’s festival, is a black-and-white silent short accompanied by a live orchestra exploring similar themes of female liberation and reclamation.

Japanese anime icon Hayao Miyazaki’s gorgeous film, “The Boy and the Heron,” was featured in this year’s lineup. The film takes place in post-WWII Japan and tells the story of teenage boy Mahito, who, still grieving his mother’s

death, moves to the countryside with his new stepmother. There, he befriends a gray heron who leads him on a quest in an alternate reality where he must save his stepmother and himself.

Mayazaki’s latest film is definitely one of his best and is destined to become another classic.

The festival also featured a few remarkable debuts. Sean Price Williams, who has most notably worked as the Safdie brothers’ longtime director of photography, made his first directorial effort with the raucously hilarious “The Sweet East.” In the film, Talia Ryder plays a high school senior who, while on a school trip to Washington, D.C., separates from her classmates and begins to embark on a Great American Road Trip (of sorts), weaving through several subcultures that make up the gritty underbellies of modern life in America.

Another phenomenal directorial debut is Raven Jackson’s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.” Like Williams’ “Sweet East,” Jackson traces a young woman’s personal journey, albeit in a much different tone. “All Dirt Roads” delicately follows the life of a young Black woman as she grows up in rural Mississippi. With little dialogue, Jackson creates an impressionistic film that lingers on the details of sounds and imagery to convey its story. “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” opens for regular screenings Nov. 3 at Film at Lincoln Center.

Though staggeringly diverse, the films of NYFF were united in their quests towards the eternal questions of what it means to make art from life and how cinema can connect us with the past, understand the present and imagine the future.

CULTURE

October 25, 2023

Page 13

“Something To Give Each Other” is Pop Perfection

By LAUREN LOMBARDI ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

On Oct. 13, Troye Sivan released his third full-length album, “Something To Give Each Other.” Unfortunately, I was a child entrenched in YouTube culture, so anything Sivan makes is something for me to get excited over. Since his 2020 EP “In A Dream” was widely looked over in the pool of COVID-19 releases, I’ve been waiting for Sivan to receive his flowers. His newest record, which was first announced with the summer release of the lead single, “Rush,” feels like it could finally give Sivan his moment.

The artist teased the catchy, powerful chorus to “Rush” for months on TikTok and Instagram before it came out in July, a marketing tactic I can only thank God and the good people at Capitol Records for. The buzz surrounding “Rush,” its unbelievably fun choreography and the sensual music video lasted through the release of the second single, “Got Me Started.” Personally, I prefer the latter song. The electric sample of Bag Raiders’ “Shooting Stars” is a choice that works wonders for me. Some called the sample annoying, but in my eyes Sivan made his fellow Austrailians proud. The music video references Wong

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Sivan’s album has gone viral on virtually all social media platforms.

Kar-Wai’s “Happy Together” and Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” and, again, showcases Sivan’s newfound dancing efforts. “Got Me Started” is not only one of my favorite tracks on the album, but also one of my favorite videos of Sivan’s entire career.

“Something To Give Each Other” is a joy before even pressing play. The cover of the album centers Sivan’s smiling face looking up, with an unclothed man seen on his shoulders. In his Instagram album announcement, Sivan wrote, “This album is my something to give to you - a kiss on a dancefloor, a date turned into a weekend, a crush, a winter, a summer… Heartbreak, freedom.

Community, sisterhood, friendship. All that.” The portrait conveys Sivan’s lack of discretion in his art, both emotionally and sexually. He told NPR, “Something I try and do always in my songs is just really write from a place of real life.” The singer seems completely genuine in his music, and cares little about the questions that arise because of it; he’s not compromising in sharing his life through music, he does so happily.

When first listening to an album, I skip the singles. My apologies to “Rush,” but I want to hear the new stuff! This brought me to “What’s The Time Where You Are?,” a celebration of the excitement that comes with a blooming relationship. The song features an undeniable beat and

simple, tongue-twisting lines that I just love the pronunciation of.

The album has a trend of upbeat pop anthems; Sivan’s become rich in possible club hits.

“One of Your Girls” is definitely a fan-favorite; the song has unofficially gone triple platinum on the “Friend Activity” tab on my Spotify. Admittedly, when Sivan teased the chorus “Call me if you ever get lonely/ I’ll be like one of your girls or your homies,” the writing struck me as a bit corny. However, the music video won me over. It features Sivan in full drag, with costume design that appears to be straight from late ’90s Britney Spears’s closet and Ross Lynch hanging around as an accessory to Sivan’s star power. The video is a delight, but I’m letting the song grow on me more. Currently, my favorite song on the album is “In My Room,” a great marriage of R&B and pop. I had never listened to collaborator Guitarricadelafuente before, but the Spanish singer-songwriter’s calming voice meshes perfectly with Sivan’s as they sing about being unable to get someone out of their minds. The overlapping of mellow strings and percussion makes “In My Room” feel fresh from the kindest dream.

My favorite Sivan songs have always been his saddest ones, which I’m sure has to do with the vulnerability he allows in his music. “Can’t Go Back, Baby”

falls firmly into this category. In all of the (appreciated) intimacydriven dance-hits, the stripped down tune offers a shockingly eerie tone to the middle section of “Something To Give Each Other.”

During promotion, Sivan spoke about how the album was written in the aftermath of a threeyear relationship. He told Zane Lowe of Apple Music 1, “Untangling yourself from someone, it felt like this big ball of just knotted wool or something like that.” In this track, Sivan perfectly captures the sad reality of working to unravel this entanglement. The song samples Jessica Pratt’s 2014 song “Back, Baby,” with her sloweddown, haunting voice repeating the words “Can’t go back, baby.” Pratt’s feature behind Sivan’s cuttingly-specific lines, such as “On my big weekend, while I was singing songs about you on the TV screen/Don’t know how he left the hotel, I wasn’t there to see,” makes “Can’t Go Back, Baby” a very welcome break for reflecting.

Coming in at just under 33 minutes, “Something To Give Each Other” is a bitesized piece of pop perfection.

Between the sonic shifts, influences ranging from Janet Jackson to Yung Lean and a constant easy spirit to Sivan’s voice, “Something To Give Each Other” has endlessly enhanced these past few rainy weeks.

FDM Hosts Second Annual Mr. Fordham Pageant

By KARI WHITE CULTURE EDITOR

On Oct. 19, Fordham Dance Marathon (FDM) held their second annual Mr. Fordham pageant in Fordham Prep’s Leonard Theatre. Created last year, the Mr. Fordham pageant raised $11,368 for the B+ Positive foundation, with the winner, Jonathan Eng, FCRH ’23, raising $4,296. As a result of last year’s success, FDM brought the event back, inviting students all over campus to apply for the chance of winning the coveted title. A handful of young men — well, one of them was a ram — donned their finest costumes, showed their talents and delivered tactful answers to the emcee’s poignant questions all in an enthusiastic attempt to win the title of Mr. Fordham.

To Nicole Rios, FCRH ’25, the event encapsulates what makes FDM such a special club on campus. Namely, their, “spirit, fun and cause.” As a chapter of the B+ Foundation, an organization founded by Joe McDonugh in memory of his son, Andrew, members of FDM spend their school year fundraising for cancer research, connecting with children diagnosed with cancer, known as B+ Heroes, and organizing exciting events such as Mr. Fordham.

During the pageant, each of the contestants demonstrated

their talents. Kevin Hammill, FCRH ’25, displayed his speedcrocheting, making a cropped sweater so quickly that it felt as if the sweater just suddenly appeared. Gabriel Dy, FCRH ’27, sang “Here With Me” by David Burke, making the audience swoon. Zane Gavazzi, GSB ’25, performed animal impressions, all in his bear onesie.

Greg Licciardi, FCRH ’24, followed in suit with Dy, crooning to the audience. Isaiah James, FCRH ’24, performed some unholy moves on his saxophone. Lastly, Ramses donned a tutu and performed a ballet routine ready for the stage of New York City Ballet.

Two of the judges, Jason Gao, GSB ’26, and James Reynolds, GSB ’26, expressed their desire to see something “true and beautiful” during the evening’s performances. Hopefully, the contestants lived up to their expectations. With the mastery of animal noises that Gavazzi displayed, I’m sure they did.

Despite the dashing contestants, however, the emcees, Henry Tremblay, FCRH ’26, and Ishan Hinduja-Obregon, GSB ’26, stole everyone’s hearts.

Their stories and performances of Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” had the entirety of the Leonard Theatre singing alongside them.

At the end of the event, the contestants each walked around

with a QR code, which audience members used to donate money to their personal FDM fundraising pages. Each dollar that an audience member donated to a candidate equaled one vote for them as Mr. Fordham.

Hammill won, taking home the crown and earning himself the title of Mr. Fordham.

“Ever since I was born,” said Hammill, “the first words out of my mouth were ‘Mr.’ and ‘Fordham.’ Believe it or not, it’s true.” Jokes aside, Hammill said he really enjoyed taking part in the fundraiser. “It’s fun to dance around on stage and raise money for a really good cause, so I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

All of the money raised from the event goes towards the B+ Foundation, which raises money throughout the United States to support the families of children diagnosed with childhood cancer. Colleges and high schools across the nation have chapters dedicated to fundraising, and FDM is Fordham’s very own chapter. They spend the year planning events, tabling and meeting with B+ heroes, to inspire hope. Their hard work culminates in the annual dance marathon, which takes place in the spring semester, and where they reveal just how much money they’ve raised. Last year, they raised their highest total ever, $133,241.

“Going to club meetings and

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Kevin Hammill, FCRH ’25, won the title of Mr. Fordham this year.

club events can be taxing at times, but at FDM there’s a constant reminder of the ‘why’ we’re doing what we’re doing. The B+ heroes that we meet and make an impact on truly make the meetings worthwhile, despite having midterms or finals or any other exam,” said Rios.

Luna is one of the B+ Positive heroes, a child struggling with

cancer who benefits directly from FDM’s fundraising efforts. In the middle of the event, the emcees paused while Mikyla Fidel, FCRH ’25, introduced Luna. These heroes remind FDM who they’re fundraising for, and meeting Luna (even through her picture) reminded the audience that while the event was fun, it was for a larger cause.

CULTURE

Page 14

October 25, 2023

Pamela Anderson’s “No-Makeup” Revolution

By ZOE ENNIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Pamela Anderson has been a beauty icon since the beginning of her “Playboy” modeling career in the early ’90s. Now, at 56, she is challenging society’s notions of what it truly means to be beautiful.

Anderson has received a plethora of positive feedback from other women and celebrities for her decision to attend this year’s Paris Fashion Week shows without makeup. Among the celebrities praising Anderson’s decision is Jamie Lee Curtis, who posted photos of Anderson’s bare-faced look on Instagram, captioning it, “THE NATURAL BEAUTY REVOLUTION HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN!” Although Anderson’s bold decision has led to enormous public support, she didn’t necessarily plan to become the face of the “natural beauty revolution.”

In a recent “Get Ready With Me” video for Vogue France, Anderson reveals that she didn’t come to Paris Fashion Week with the intention of making a “no-makeup” statement. As she looked at the designer clothes in her wardrobe, she realized that she didn’t want to compete with the intricate outfits she was wearing to the shows: “I’m not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room.” Anderson feels relieved that she doesn’t have to spend two to three hours in a makeup chair every morning like

she has in past fashion weeks.

Instead, she can walk around Paris by herself and explore the city without the pressure of looking perfect at every moment.

Anderson feels responsible for setting a positive example for other women, particularly those her age, and it’s clear she takes this responsibility seriously.

Anderson isn’t the first celebrity to embrace aging and the nomakeup look. Alicia Keys made headlines in 2016 for her decision to stop wearing makeup entirely. At 64, Katie Couric broke out of her comfort zone when she went makeup-free for a 2021 spread in People magazine. In a Vogue “Beauty Secrets” video posted last month, Ariana Grande tearfully revealed that she doesn’t get Botox or filler anymore because she no longer feels the need to hide her natural face: “I hope my smile lines get deeper and deeper, and I laugh more and more.” Women are made to fear aging because the typical beauty standard places so much emphasis on youthfulness. It’s no wonder that Botox is so normalized if it’s able to preserve one’s youthful beauty for a little longer. It seems like the “natural beauty revolution” isn’t just about makeup, but is also about changing the narrative behind aging. It’s not something to be afraid of and hide, but rather something to celebrate. Many women haven’t been so lucky to live long enough to develop smile lines

and crow’s feet. Aging is a privilege, and the physical proof of having lived life doesn’t need to be hidden and ignored, as society often encourages women to do. Having smile lines is simply proof that someone has experienced so much joy in their life that it’s permanently etched in their skin. Anderson is just one of many celebrities who are embracing aging and encouraging women to take pride in their natural appearance.

Although Anderson’s makeupfree statement is particularly influential for aging women, it sets an inspiring example for women of all ages. The pressure to adhere to the beauty standard is something that every woman experiences. For Caroline Kuhlman, FCRH ’25, Anderson’s statement is a step in the right direction for challenging beauty standards.

“I think it’s really inspiring and empowering for Pamela not to wear makeup on the red carpet.

Since the ’90s, Pamela has been somewhat of the typical beauty standard in American culture, but her not wearing makeup undermines the misogyny that is ingrained in our beauty standards,” Kuhlman said. Anderson’s rebellious act to step out of her comfort zone sets an example that can inspire women of all ages to feel comfortable in their own skin.

Perhaps there will be a time when a woman not wearing makeup doesn’t make national headlines and is just a normal everyday occurrence. It shows

how beauty standards are so deeply ingrained in society that Anderson’s decision to go makeup-less at Fashion Week is perceived as rebellious and newsworthy. It certainly is a step in the right direction for challenging the standards that women are held to, but there is much more to be done to truly alleviate the pressure that beauty standards put on women. The more female celebrities embrace the natural look, the more it will become normalized. Anderson took a powerful step by ignoring the status quo

and doing what made her feel confident and free.

Anderson’s makeup-free appearance sends a powerful message to fans that they can embrace their natural beauty at any age. An action as simple as not wearing makeup means so much in a society where women’s value is often judged by their appearance. Anderson’s very public decision to not wear makeup sets a new precedent for women that it’s not their obligation to adhere to the beauty standard just because it’s what they’re used to.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Anderson’s choice not to wear makeup sparked inspiration online.

Editor’s Pick | Literature

Confronting the Uncomfortable with Ray Bradbury

By ALLISON SCHNEIDER ASST. OPINION EDITOR

Anyone who knows me well knows that I adore Ray Bradbury, almost to a fault. I wrote my college entrance essay about him. I quoted him in the speech I gave at my high school graduation. This past summer, I got my first tattoo: black linework based on the cover of Simon & Schuster’s 2012 edition of Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles.” And here I am, writing about him and his work again.

My fascination with Bradbury’s writing borders on obsession. He is prolific. He wrote about everything, and pretty much all of it is good. He wrote about childhood, science-fiction, the Midwest, nuclear fallout, environmentalism, technology, censorship and government corruption. His works were well-respected during his time and after for their compelling images, powerful analogies and insightful social commentary, but to me, they are so much more.

The first time I read Bradbury’s work, I was in my sixth-grade English class. My teacher at the time, the wonderful Mr. Farmer, assigned to us one of Bradbury’s short stories: “The Veldt.” It’s a haunting tale about how unbridled technology can corrupt family structures and eat away at the simplicity of childhood.

As the blossoming adolescent I was, learning that she could, in fact, disagree with her parents, the story struck a chord.

It was around this time, in early middle school, that I discovered my own interest in writing and telling stories. I wanted to be able to tell stories like Bradbury.

His writing is accessible while still being wonderfully imaginative. He wrote for everyone from sixth-grade girls to burnt-out 20-somethings to professionals on the brink of retirement, and I wanted to emulate that. I still do.

Since reading “The Veldt,” I’ve read a slew of his other works enthusiastically, attentively and earnestly. I mean, “The Veldt” is just one of the hundreds of poignant, before-theirtime stories that Bradbury wrote in his nearly 70-year career. Of course, he is most well-known for his novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” which includes similar themes about technology, government corruption and censorship that are present in his other stories, but “Fahrenheit 451” is just the tip of the iceberg that is Bradbury’s oeuvre.

“Fahrenheit 451” is an indisputably great novel, but it would be a shame to go through life having only read one of Bradbury’s books. It would be a shame to miss out on the childhood lessons and sticky nostalgia

of “Dandelion Wine,” a shame not to ponder age, adulthood and fear alongside Jim Nightshade and William Halloway in “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” It breaks my heart to think that not everyone will have the great pleasure of experiencing the monotonous beauty of the American Midwest through the eyes of Ray Bradbury in his loosely compiled Green Town series. I can’t imagine a world in which I hadn’t read “There Will Come Soft Rains” or “And the Moon Be Still as Bright.” I simply would not be the same person without these stories.

But above all of these, the most formative of his novels, the book that solidified my infatuation with Bradbury, was “The Martian Chronicles.” The book is like a puzzle, a beautiful anthology made up of around 26 short stories. It tells the story of the colonization of Mars by Earthborn humans, and in doing so, forces the reader to confront the systems that they exist in and contribute to. It’s a thinly-veiled anti-colonial piece. It tackles issues like environmentalism, racism, and sexism through the compelling analogy of EarthMars relations.

I’ve read the book in full a couple of times, but the true beauty of an anthology is the ability to go back and read small sections

at a time, sections that spoke to you most. Bradbury’s “And the Moon Be Still as Bright,” which I mentioned before, is perhaps my favorite section from the entire novel. It follows the arrival of the fourth American expedition to Mars. By the time the astronauts arrive, nearly all the Martians have been wiped out by disease, brought on by exposure to the previous expeditions.

My personal hero and the featured character of this story, Jeff Spender, emerges as a defender of the remaining Martians and admonishes the rest of the crew for their failure to respect Mars’ environment, culture and the tragedy forced upon the Martians by colonization.

In the background of this entire story is the looming threat of nuclear fallout on Earth, a theme that Bradbury writes about in many of his stories. The book forces the reader to ask themself serious questions and confront their own moral beliefs. What would you do? If you had the money to escape nuclear fallout on Earth by traveling to Mars, would you do it? Would it be worth it to save yourself at the risk of thousands of Martians’ lives, taken or disrupted by colonization? Whose side would you take?

That is how you know that “The Martian Chronicles” is a good novel. It upsets you. It cre-

ates this hypothetical dilemma and transforms it into something real. You can’t read any of Bradbury’s works in peace, and that is why they are so important. A truly great work of art should make you uncomfortable.

It should reveal truths about the world and also about yourself.

Bradbury’s truths — revealed to millions of other readers like me — have made me forever grateful for the impact that his writing has had on my life, and I anxiously await the day that my own writing might have that sort of impact on someone else.

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Bradbury’s stories still resonate.

CULTURE

October 25, 2023

Page 15

OMA Celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride in First-Ever Parade

By KARI WHITE CULTURE EDITOR

On Wednesday, Oct. 11, the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) hosted Fordham’s very first pride parade. For a few hours, campus became awash with signs proclaiming the right to love, flags with every color of the rainbow and loud music booming through campus.

The parade started beside the Lombardi Fieldhouse, winding past Hughes Hall, Cunniffe House and Dealy Hall to end right in front of the McShane Campus Center. The night did not conclude here, however, as drag queens then performed a show while students cheered them on. Two students even stepped into the makeshift stage, lip syncing and voguing to the best of their abilities. The event ended with a speech from Juan Carlos Matos, the assistant vice president for student affairs for diversity and inclusion, which highlighted the importance of hosting Fordham’s inaugural pride parade.

According to Matos, hosting an event like the pride parade has been a long time in the making. Last spring, at the presentation of the Qu(e)ery Survey, a report that gathered insight into the experiences of Fordham students who belong to a sexual or gender-based minority, two of the students said that they’d love to see a pride parade on

campus. While the pride parade did require considerable funds, alumni donations to the LGBTQ Programming fund enabled OMA to host the parade on National Coming Out Day. Hosting it on that day also enabled it to go hand in hand with OMA’s other event, Flags on the Lawn, which has been an ongoing event for the past five years.

But, why create the pride parade now? And why in October?

“The visibility of the LGBTQ community has really grown on campus, as well as student groups for LGBTQ students. We felt like we needed a larger scale event to celebrate the community,” said Dorothy Bogen, FCRH ’24, the cultural programming coordinator for OMA’s LGBTQ+ History Month committee. “Since we aren’t in school in June as well, we often can’t celebrate actual Pride, so we thought it would be perfect to have this event in October, LGBTQ History month.”

While OMA struggled on determining the scale of the event, organizing the actual event on a very short timeline and informing the student body about this new event, their instincts were certainly in the right place. At the very least, they were right about needing a larger scale.

Hundreds of people participated in the event, either waving flags along the parade’s route or riding in golf carts and leaning out the sides. Many clubs,

like Rodrigue’s Coffee House, Women’s Empowerment Club and Students for Environmental Awareness and Justice, joined in the event, as well as countless individuals — both students and faculty.

“Looking back to see all the golf carts, students and staff actually in a parade route was a very proud and emotional thing to see, being a gay AfroDominican administrator. Not being comfortable being ‘out’ in undergrad and now having the opportunity to create an event like this at Fordham was very meaningful to me,” said Matos, who led the parade with his partner.

He wasn’t the only one for whom this was an impactful first.

For Sarah Newgil, FCRH ’27, who marched with Rodrigue’s Coffee House in the parade, this was her first pride event. “This felt really welcoming, and was really nice,” she said.

Other students echoed her sentiment: “I love the music and the banners, and the fun environment,” said Patricia Scully, FCRH ’25.

The environment was certainly full of fun, laughter and celebration. People attended the march with their friends, and dressed up as if they were attending an off-campus pride parade. The crowd was filled with rainbow sweaters, skirts, face paint and more, not to mention the handfuls of flags that students waved. Members of the LGBTQ

committee stood beside boxes upon boxes of small pride flags, giving out one, two or even three to whomever asked.

“It’s nice to have a reminder of how far we’ve come and how meaningful events like this can be for people in the Fordham community,” said Bogen.

With the success of this event, Matos says that OMA is definitely planning on turning the pride parade into an annual event. He hopes that, by planning earlier, they will be able to incorporate more members of the Fordham community and include more

off-campus organizations that partner with Fordham.

Although a senior, Bogen is also excited for the event to become a tradition. “It’s nice to have a reminder of how far we’ve come, and how meaningful events like this can be for people in the Fordham community.”

OMA has held a series of events throughout October celebrating LGBTQ history and culture, which included the pride parade and Flags on the Lawn. Their final event of LGBT History Month is their Halloween Party, which will take place on Oct. 27.

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

OMA hosted Fordham’s first pride parade to celebrate LGBTQ history.

NYC Neighborhoods | Carroll Gardens

Carroll Gardens Cools and Comforts

By CALEB STINE COLUMNIST

As far as names of neighborhoods, Carroll Gardens is the best of the best in New York City.

The northwestern corner of Brooklyn is a combination of neighborhoods that culturally and aesthetically are very similar. A blessing or curse that Manhattan doesn’t have to deal with (except in the slight smearing of the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights that was touched on last week), brownstones are plentiful and streets are neatly kept, row houses are arranged in organized fashion and quaint cafes and brunch spots on a Sunday morning are often more crowded than Friday dinner joints.

Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill and their surrounding areas of “yuppie” Brooklyn where strollers have replaced working class residents via gentrification and “that dollar slice better have gluten-free crust,” can often be seen as indistinguishable from each other.

And while they’re certainly very similar, each neighborhood is their own slice of this glutenfree pie of the northwestern tip of Brooklyn. Carroll Gardens is one of my favorite bites here.

Originally developed by Irish immigrants in the 19th century,

Carroll Gardens was originally developed to aid in the transportation to the recently built Green-Wood Cemetery. Later, trolley lines and carriages ran through Carroll Gardens, providing better ease and convenience to Manhattan.

Italian immigrants began populating Carroll Gardens in droves at the turn of the 20th century, as these new residents often found work at the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Once an Italian stronghold,

gentrification beginning in the 1980s has watered down the neighborhood’s ethnic ties. The Italian makeup of the neighborhood has decreased from 52% in 1980 to 22% in 2012.

A perfect day in Carroll Gardens looks like popping into a bookstore and indulging in iconic pizza, or mediterranean specials.

Books are Magic is a shiny bookstore with pages for all ages. The welcomingly vibrant atmosphere of the store is a priority for owner and author

Emma Straub, whose friendly face has made a mark on readers since 2017.

If you think “Indie bookstore in Brooklyn,” all the artistic inspiration and positivity you could predict are here at Books Are Magic, without the neoliberal swank you could easily find at a handful of other bookstores. A balancing act that is rarely pulled off.

My freshman year roommate was from Carroll Gardens and spoke highly of the restaurant

COURTESY OF CALEB STINE FOR THE FORDHAM RAM

Caroll Gardens’ array of pizza shops, bookstores and legendary restaurant makes it a great place for a day trip.

Verde right across the street.

With idyllic dining in a brickwalled indoors acting as the background for pasta, seafood and more, Verde is a spot that’s hard to toss up.

One of the most famous pizzas in New York and, arguably, the most hyped-up is Lucali.

Opening in 2006, Jay-Z famously named it his favorite pie in the city. Dave Portnoy gave it a 9.3 rating, and it’s in his top 5 of all time. Jeremy Allen White of “The Bear” follows their Instagram account.

The endorsements could go on.

Closed on Tuesdays, Lucali infamously takes no early reservations, and crowds form as early as 3:30 p.m. just for a shot at tasting Lucali’s brickoven pies between 5 p.m. open and 11 p.m. close six days a week. The atmosphere is always electric, and celeb sightings are routine.

Go. But not if you’re gluten-free.

Carroll Gardens stands out.

You can take a breath here. Relax with a good book and take on the understated, yet gorgeous urban scenery of brownstones and brick buildings.

Always classy and somehow never overwhelming, Carroll Gardens is comforting, and the perfect place to venture to as the leaves change colors.

Page 16

Student Athlete Column: Looking Ahead at the Upcoming Season

SPORTS

Three Straight Ties for Men’s Soccer

By MADDIE BIMONTE

By SOPHIA CRUCS

SPORTS EDITOR

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

This weekend, Fordham’s cross country team will compete in the Atlantic 10 Championship in Cedarville, Ohio, hosted by the University of Dayton. The team will depart on Thursday and take a plane to the competition in order to race Saturday morning. The women’s team will be racing a 6K and the men’s team an 8K, which is standard practice. The rest of the track and field team will send off our teammates when they leave Thursday, wishing them luck at their competition. Soon, they’ll transition back into competing on the track, rather than the course.

Although far less exciting than cross country’s championships, this week marks the official start of track and field season. Now, our team can practice up to 20 hours per week, which means we have practice six days a week for the rest of the school year. We already practice five days a week (three of which we also have team lift following practice), but this extra day of practice is a big adjustment. As a team, we have renewed our focus on group stretching and recovery to prevent injury. However, in general I would recommend everyone starts their day with 10 minutes of stretching; it’s a great way to wake up and seize the day.

Maybe it’s the leaves starting to change, or the temperature dropping, but there’s definitely something in the air. Soon enough we will be racing again. There’s an energy that I haven’t felt before going into this season, even in my fourth year of track. It might be because I’m finally in my senior year and it’s my last chance to prove myself on the track, but I think there’s more

to it than that. As a team we’ve been pushing ourselves farther than before in team lift, hitting personal bests and maxes in almost every session. On the track, we’ve been building up our speed and endurance, running our first workout in spikes earlier this week. We’re going to start working on our block starts this week as well. In general, I’ve noticed people going the extra mile as well: group ab exercises post-practice, extra stretching and an effort to participate in team activities outside of practice.

I think it’s the mark of a successful team to do these little things.

Group study sessions at the library may not seem like much at the moment, but it can be a lot easier to do the harder stuff by practicing all around good habits. Also, when you spend more time with your teammates off the track, it is reflected at practice. Track is not strictly a team sport in the way that baseball or soccer may be, but it’s far easier to get through a hard workout when you know you’re surrounded by people that support you and have your back. It also pays off to build trust so when you’re completing a blind handoff during the 4x100m relay at A-10s in the spring, you know it will go smoothly.

Overall, I think our team has a great season in store. Practice is one thing, but the reason we show up every morning is for the chance to race, and not only to race, but to win.

I’m excited for what’s to come, and hopefully after a successful weekend for our cross country team, we’ll be ready to get to work on the indoor track and have a fantastic winter season.

Fordham Men’s Soccer has had a busy schedule this season, and their last three matches were all hard-fought matches. Competing against the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Duquesne University and Princeton University, the Rams drew in all three matches for the week.

Two weeks ago, the Rams faced off against the UMass Minutemen on Senior Night.

The team honored more than a dozen graduate students and seniors in their final year with the program. The Rams have been battling in the Atlantic 10 to try and secure a playoff berth, and with a big draw against the Minutemen, they were one step closer to postseason play.

Senior Florian Deletioglu scored Fordham’s lone goal on Saturday, giving the Rams an early 1-0 lead in the seventh minute of action. It would mark the Munich-born player’s seventh goal of the season, leading the team. Also, with that goal improves to third overall in the A-10 in terms of goals.

Graduate student Kai Griese, who assisted on the goal, recorded his team-leading fourth assist of the year, as he delivered a corner kick into the box. UMass outshot the Rams, 15-12, including a 4-3 edge in shots on goal.

Fordham led for a majority of the match, holding onto a 1-0 lead until the 75th minute. It was then when UMass’s Nick Zielonka equalized it, scoring his fourth goal of the season.

The Rams weren’t able to push past that lone goal, resulting

The freshman middle blocker earned Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week honors after just her second week in the starting lineup.

Rosenkilde helped lead Fordham to a pair of conference wins over George Washington University, leading the Rams in solo rejections and block assists by averaging 1.25 blocks per set.

HOME AWAY

Wednesday Oct. 25

Thursday Oct. 26

Friday Oct. 27

Davidson

Rhode Island 5 p.m.

6 p.m.

Tuesday Oct. 31

Davidson 1 p.m.

3 p.m.

Holy Cross 1 p.m.

Fordham Four Fordham Four Invite Invite TBA TBA

Men’s Tennis Vassar/ St. Lawrence 9:30/10 a.m.

Head of the

Rowing Water Polo

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

Monday Oct. 30

Loyola Chicago

Football

Squash

Sunday Oct. 29

UMBC (Exhibition) 4 p.m.

Men’s Soccer The freshman turned in an impressive performance on Saturday, netting eight goals in a Saturday sweep in California. Highlighted by a stellar five-goal performance against #13 Cal Baptist University and a hat trick against #17 Santa Clara University, Eppel led Fordham’s offensive attack in their two wins out west and posted 11 goals in the six-game stretch. He now ranks third on the team in scoring with 43 goals on the season.

Fordham jumped to action with graduate student Sigfus Arnason sinking a shot high to the top right corner of the net to make it 1-0 in the 9th minute of play. Answering right back was the Tigers’ Daniel Ittycheria who rebounded a save from Abbott, mimicking Arnason and sending it to the same spot.

From then on the game went back and forth in terms of opportunities, but yet no side could find it in them to push past one goal. As the first half ended, things got much more physical, with ​​Deletioglu receiving a yellow card.

Both teams would score another goal in the second half, but once again could not get the advantage.

Kicking off things in the second half, the Tigers’ Walker Gillespie sent one to the upper center of the net past Abbott in the 73rd minute.

While it was looking as if Fordham would be dealt a loss, in the last three minutes of play Lehr assisted on a goal scored by senior Grady Kozak, who was able to slot it right past the Princeton goalkeeper.

The Rams held their ground for the last two minutes, resulting in their third straight tie.

Now, they have one regular season match left on the season as well as their last A-10 matchup against Loyola University Chicago on the road. They’ll take to the pitch on Saturday at 3 p.m. before making a trip to the Atlantic 10 Championships starting Nov. 4.

Atlantic 10 Championship 10 a.m.

Atlantic 10 Championship 10 a.m.

Men’s Cross Country Women’s Cross Country Volleyball

Saturday Oct. 28

Men’s Basketball

Freshman Volleyball

Barnabas Eppel Freshman Water Polo

in a draw to wrap up the week for them. Fordham then had a well-deserved break after that before gearing up for their next match this past week against Duquesne.

In terms of the actual game, it was a hard-fought battle for the Rams as they trailed for almost the entire game. While Fordham outshot and recorded more set piece opportunities, they weren’t able to find the back of the net until the 85th minute. Sophomore Daniel D’Ippolito tallied a career-high seven shots, three of which were on goal.

Deletioglu recorded four shots, and right behind him, graduate student Louis Lehr totaled three.

In goal, senior Carter Abbott played all 90 minutes. Abbott also took home A-10 Defensive Player of the Week last week for his efforts. Against Duquesne, he made one save on his way to his sixth draw of the season.

Due to the result, the Rams have secured a spot in the Atlantic 10 Championship, St. Bonaventure University will not be able to tie the Rams at 11 points with one game remaining. The tournament features eight of the top teams in the A-10.

In addition, the Rams wrapped up their home games at Moglia Stadium without conceding a single game.

In their last non-conference game of the regular season, the Rams faced Princeton on the road Tuesday night. Both teams were itching to get on the board first, as both teams struck in the first 15 minutes of the match.

Varsity Calendar

Athletes of the Week

Lorenza Rosenkilde

October 25, 2023

Golf

Schuylkill TBA GW / Mt. St. Mary’s 11 a.m. / 6 p.m.

Bucknell 10 a.m.

Veteran’s Intercollegiate

SPORTS

October 25, 2023

This Beautiful Life: Softball Alum Sarah Taffet Shares Her Journey Two Years After Cardiac Arrest

By EVA ROSE KORATSIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

For most people, October spells a season of apple picking, Halloween costumes and pumpkin spice lattes. But for Fordham Softball alum Sarah Taffet, this month represents something much more momentous than hayrides and cider — it is the two-year marker of her second chance at life.

On Oct. 3, 2021, Taffet went into cardiac arrest during a fall game against Villanova University. Her world turned black as a tag to the chest left her staggering, eventually collapsing to the ground. Fear and panic flooded through the field as athletic trainer Bridget Ward sprinted to her side. The players cried and embraced one another as Taffet’s parents feared the worst. Onlookers held their breath as Ward searched for the absent pulse. She immediately started lifesaving CPR. Two and a half minutes felt like ages as people prayed for her recovery. Then, after two rounds of CPR and a shock from the automated external defibrillator (AED), her teammates recount hearing a large, gasping breath.

Taffet was brought back to life.

After lengthy research and persistence by the doctors, they discovered that Taffet had a rare defect called ALCAPA, or anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery. This one-in-300,000 defect is most often detected during infancy, and of those diagnosed during adulthood, most don’t survive.

The situation was emergent, and on Nov. 1, Taffet went in for open heart surgery. The surgery was a success, allowing her to play two more seasons with Fordham Softball and continue a life that so easily could have been cut short. Since then, Taffet found her calling to be an advocate on the importance of CPR/ AED awareness. “This was never something I was passionate about,” she shared, “but after seeing how this super easy skill helped save my life, it became my mission to

educate those around me.”

Now, after the day’s second anniversary, Taffet reflects on her journey and all she has done to maintain her mission. “It’s crazy to think that it has already been two years since my cardiac arrest,” Taffet said. “I am so lucky and grateful to be here and be able to make an impact.”

This summer, Taffet and Buffalo Bill’s safety Damar Hamlin were asked to be a part of the New York Yankees’ annual Helping Others Persevere and Excel (HOPE) Week.

Hamlin also went into cardiac arrest on the field last winter. There, she helped teach CPR to the Yankee players and also threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the according game. Even as a die-hard Mets fan, Taffet said she enjoyed her time with the Yankees and expressed her gratitude for being able to share her story. “HOPE Week was absolutely incredible!” she exclaimed.

“It really inspired me to continue finding new ways to advocate for this cause.”

Meeting Hamlin was especially touching for Taffet. “Being able to connect with someone who went through what I also did was such a special experience,” she recalls, noting with a laugh how they even exchanged autographs.

“Seeing the work he has done thus far has seriously inspired me to continue doing my part.”

Most notable of all, Taffet was finally able to find some closure. “[It was] kind of like a full circle moment,” she smiled, “just to see

where I was, the people I was with — I was and always will be so grateful for such a special, once-in-a lifetime experience.”

To this day, Taffet still constantly thinks about the people who helped save her, especially Ward.

But now, she’s set her eyes on something new, something greater — her life to come. Since that fateful day, Taffet has a new value and appreciation for life, and she plans to live her second chance as much as she can, for even just having a heart beat is a gift to her. “I’m just excited to live my life, a life that was almost taken away two years ago,” she preached.

From a partially biased interviewer, it is safe to say she has a wonderful future ahead. Taffet has just finished college with a masters degree in Media Management and has her first full-time job. She has recently taken a trip to Colombia and even plans to run a marathon in the near future. As for continuing to spread CPR/AED awareness, that is a mission she’ll never quit.

With much wisdom and compassion beyond her years, Taffet leaves us with some advice: “Take those chances, have no fear, and just go out there and be yourself.”

She knows more than most how fleeting life can be, and she embraces this fact as a challenge — a challenge to live.

“I’m going to enjoy every second of every day of this beautiful life,” she said, taking a sip of her pumpkin spice latte.

Page 17

Varsity Scores & Stats 26 7

Women’s Soccer Fordham VCU

1 3

Water Polo Fordham Pacific

10 12

Men’s Soccer Fordham Duquesne

1 1

Fordham Cal

11 18

Fordham Princeton

2 2

Fordham San Jose St.

8 10

Volleyball Fordham George Washington

3 2

Fordham Santa Clara

12 10

Fordham George Washington

3 2

Fordham Pepperdine

14 15

Football Fordham Stony Brook

Women’s Tennis Fordham Fall Classic NTS (No Team Score) ITA Super Regionals NTS (No Team Score)

–Compiled by Maddie Bimonte

Women’s Swimming Fordham 188 Marist 104 Fordham Monmouth

173 89

Men’s Swimming Fordham 150.5 Marist 140.5 Fordham Monmouth

150 95

News & Notes Two Rams Named to Atlantic 10 Preseason All-Defensive Team Seniors Kyle Rose and Abdou Tsimbila received Atlantic 10 nods this past week on the A-10 Preseason All Defensive Team after their strong performance during last season. During the 2022-23 season, Rose led the team and ranked third in the A-10 with 1.8 steals per game. Tsimbila was second in the league for blocked shots per game with 1.9.

Swim and Dive Gets Interim Head Coach

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Taffet with Damar Hamlin during HOPE Week at Yankee Stadium.

Former U.S. Olympian & NCAA Champion Tom Wilkens was named interim head coach for the Fordham swimming & diving program ahead of the 2023-24 season. Wilkens comes from a prestigious and decorated swim career, serving as captain of the U.S. Olympic Swim Team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, which won 33 overall medals, accounting for a third of all U.S. medals won at the 2000 Games. He personally earned bronze in the 200-meter individual medley. In addition, Wilkens was a World Champion at the 2002 World Championships in Moscow, taking gold in the 400-meter individual medley and setting a new American record in the event.

Overtime: A World Cup On Three Continents

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

Earlier this month, FIFA announced its unprecedented plan for the 2030 World Cup. The tournament is set to be held in six different countries across three continents: Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Spain, Portugal and Morocco are set to host the bulk of the tournament with Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay hosting one match each to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup in 1930.

Originally, these were two separate bids pitted against each other. It was Spain, Portugal and Morocco vs. Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. FIFA was going to have to make a tough choice.

Instead, they avoided that decision entirely and made both sets of bidders happy.

But by doing this, FIFA has continued to alter something that doesn’t need altering. This began with the unnecessary expansion of the World Cup field to 48 teams beginning in 2026. And now, this three-continent World Cup will have numerous negative effects on the competition.

First, all six of these host nations will automatically qualify for the 2030 World Cup. It’s understandable that Spain, Portugal and Morocco would automatically qualify considering the majority of the competition will be held in those nations. But for Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay to automatically qualify when they will only host one match? That doesn’t make sense.

South American World Cup qualifying is notoriously difficult. Paraguay hasn’t qualified for the tournament since 2010, and Argentina nearly missed

the 2018 edition if not for heroics from Lionel Messi on the final match day of qualifying. To give these three nations automatic qualification puts the rest of South America at a disadvantage. A country like Bolivia will only host one less match than Paraguay in 2030, yet their road to the tournament is infinitely more difficult.

The three non-host teams who will play a match in South America will also be at a disadvantage. While Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay get the benefit of playing a match in front of a home crowd and automatically qualifying for the tournament, the three teams who have to play them don’t.

Having to play your first match in South America and then flying across the Atlantic Ocean to a different time zone for the rest of the tournament is not an easy thing to do. When the other nations at the tournament

don’t have to worry about that extra travel, it’s not fair for the teams that do.

Say a team like Panama is drawn to play their opening game in Uruguay. How are Panamanian fans expected to follow their team at the tournament? It’s expensive enough to follow a team around one country, much less different continents.

At the end of the day, this was a political decision from FIFA. It was rumored that Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay would push their bid to 2034 if FIFA ended up choosing Spain, Portugal and Morocco for 2030. But Saudi Arabia has been very public about their desire to host in 2034.

By allowing the three South American countries to get a share of the spoils in 2030, the door is open for Saudi Arabia to host four years later with little competition from elsewhere. We already know that FIFA doesn’t

care about human rights records based on their decision to host the 2022 tournament in Qatar, so it seems in all likelihood that a Saudi World Cup is coming in 11 years.

In trying to appease everyone, FIFA is once again diluting their most famous competition.

I understand that competitions change over time. The World Cup is certainly no different.

But these changes don’t provide any sporting value to the competition.

Expanding to 48 teams was about expanding profits. And hosting the 2030 edition isn’t about commemorating 100 years of the World Cup. It’s about eliminating the competition so Saudi Arabia can host in 2034.

Few of FIFA’s decisions actually have to do with the sport of soccer, although that’s what we’ve come to expect from them at this point.

SPORTS

Page 18

Rowing Starts Off Season at Heart of the Housatonic

By MADDIE BIMONTE SPORTS EDITOR

The 2023-24 season is underway for the Rams as the Fordham rowing team started off their season at Shelton, Conn. at Indian Well State Park this past weekend. Participating in the Heart of the Housatonic, the Rams annually return to the event, with this year marking large success for Fordham compared to last year’s outing.

Junior Charlotte Maravelis led the team as the coxswain for the Varsity 8 boat, which featured seniors Elli Lewis, Maja Gunz, Brooke Gould, Annabelle Baulch and Eleanor Rodde, graduate students Jamie Forbes and Anya Casey and new addition to the Varsity 8, freshman Faith Lee. The Varsity 8 looks pretty much the same as last year, with slight changes in Maravelis moving up to the Varsity 8 coxswain after leading the Second Varsity 8 last year.

While the group finished last season in 17th in 17:14.9, this year, the Rams completed the course in 18:21, locking down fourth overall.

Fordham’s Second Varsity 8

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Fordham women’s soccer team continued their stretch of Atlantic 10 play to finish the regular season. After going 2-1-3 in the first six games, notching nine points, they traveled to face La Salle University in a physical match with 32 fouls and seven yellow cards handed out.

The Explorers came into the game winners of their last five, all conference games and all being shutout victories. The Rams made quick work to ensure they would not make it a sixth shutout in a row when graduate student Caroline Monahan found the back of the net three and a half minutes into the game, her teamhigh fifth of the season.

Senior and team captain Olivia Redden booted a free kick into the box, and after bouncing around, Monahan volleyed it into the goal for the score.

Just five minutes after the Fordham goal, La Salle scored one of their own for the equalizer, knotting the game up at one early on. The first yellow was handed out in the 29th minute after graduate student Cianna Elmazaj committed a foul.

Two minutes later, Fordham head coach Magnus Nilerud was handed a yellow of his own, the second in the game.

In the 32nd minute, a foul in the box led to a La Salle penalty kick, which was converted after being just out of the reach of Rams goalie Serena Mensah to put

Swimming and Diving Begins Season With Three Wins

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

The Rams had a dramatic improvement at this years event compared to last year.

and Third Varsity 8 finished seventh and eighth, respectively, turning in times of 18:44 and 19:01. This, again, was an improvement over last year’s outing when the Second Varsity 8 boat was 25th in 18:36.9. Third Varsity replicated similar efforts last year, coming in right behind the Second boat, taking 26th in 18:56.2. Fordham had no Fourth Varsity 8 boat this year.

In the Varsity 4 shells, the First Varsity 4 placed fourth in 20:23, followed closely by the Second Varsity 4 at 20:25. The First Varsity 4 consisted of coxswain Stefania Rocca, Lewis, Rodde,

Forbes and Casey. The Varsity 4 is missing their star rower from last year, First Team All-Atlantic 10 Maren Geier, who graduated this past spring.

The Third Varsity 4 shell crossed the line in 21:38 followed by the Fourth Varsity 4 boat in 22:47.

Now, the Rams are turning their attention to the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta this Saturday in Philadelphia on the Schuylkill River. Last year on the river, the freshman/novice 4 boat took home silver. They’ll be competing against fellow Atlantic 10 schools as they go for gold this upcoming weekend.

Women’s Soccer Ends Season on Fourth Straight Loss

By NOAH HOFFMAN

October 25, 2023

the Explorers up one.

The next yellow card came before the end of the first half when a La Salle player was awarded one after a hard hit on Elmazaj.

The physical play continued in the second half, with both teams receiving two more fouls each, bringing Fordham to four and La Salle to three. Although the Rams won the penalty game, they lost the match 2-1.

Fordham returned home to honor their seniors and face Saint Joseph’s University. The Rams attacked early and often, with eight shots taken in the first 30 minutes of the game, none finding the back of the net.

Fordham was awarded a corner at the 30-minute mark taken

by Monahan, who served it into the box and found junior captain Abby Doyle. Doyle’s initial shot was blocked, but the rebound found her and she squeezed it inside the right post for the score. The Ram’s defense held strong in the half, only allowing three shots to the Hawks. The lone threatening shot came with five seconds left, but Mensah made an incredible leaping tip to push the ball over the goal and preserve the lead.

Three minutes into the second half, Saint Joseph scored the equalizer after a free kick on an offside led to a breakaway goal for the Hawks. The Hawks scored the tiebreaker in the 67th minute, this time on a throw-in leading to the Saint Joseph break. The goal would be the difference in the game,

with the Rams unable to find the equalizer despite opportunities toward the end of the match.

Hoping to rebound after the two losses, Fordham traveled to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for their penultimate match of the regular season. However, just five minutes into the game, Fordham found themselves down 1-0 after an early VCU goal. VCU continued to pressure the Fordham defense, netting their second goal in the 19th minute and third at the 24th to go up 3-0 before Fordham took a shot.

The second half was much of the same for Fordham, with VCU pressuring the entire time and Fordham’s second shot of the game not coming until inside the 61st minute. Fordham’s lone goal of the game came in the 85th minute when junior Carmen Hardwick found freshman Lena Johnsen for her fourth goal of the season. The loss made it three in a row for the Rams.

Fordham again found themselves down three minutes into their final game of the season on Sunday against the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass).

The match stayed 1-0 for most of the game until UMass added another on the board in the 84th minute to seal the win for the Minutewomen, as they handed Fordham their fourth straight loss to end the season.

The Rams end coach Nilerud’s second season in charge with a 4-10-4 overall record and 2-5-3 in the A-10, missing the conference tournament after finishing in 10th with nine points.

Fordham Swimming and Diving started their season in the best possible way earlier this month, with both the men’s and women’s teams winning each of their first three meets against Manhattan College, Marist College and Monmouth University.

Against Manhattan on Oct. 13, Fordham won every single event both in individual competition and in relays. The women walked away with a 163-65 win over the Jaspers, while the men won by a score of 163-58.

There were three multi-event winners on the women’s side of the competition, all of them juniors. Leire Martin won both the 100 backstroke with a time of 56.87 and the 200 individual medley at 2:06.27. Emma Shaughnessy took home first place in both breaststroke events, winning the 50 at 29.06 and the 100 at 1:04.39.

Lastly, Jessica Zebrowski swept both butterfly events, coming at 25.47 in the 50 and 56.59 in the 100.

On the men’s side, graduate student Wojciech Dutkowiak and sophomore Marco Petit won two events each. Dutkowiak, a transfer from the University of Pittsburgh, captured first in both the 100 and 200 freestyle events at 46.57 and 1:41.86, respectively. Petit dominated the diving events, winning the one-meter dive with a score of 224.55 and the three-meter dive with a score of 224.25.

The Rams were less dominant in their meet against Marist College the following Thursday, although Fordham still won both the men’s and women’s competitions.

The men’s competition came down to the wire, with Fordham narrowly winning 150.5-140.5.

There was a bit more space between Fordham and Marist on the women’s side, with the Rams coming out on top 188-104.

Thanks to multi-event wins from graduate student Guy Gropper, senior Noah Althoff and sophomore Christian Taylor, the Fordham men

held a slim one-point lead over Marist heading into the final event of the day: the 400 freestyle relay.

The quartet of Taylor, Dutkowiak, Althoff and Gropper secured the victory over Marist by winning the relay at 3:03.75.

On the women’s side, Fordham’s victory was much less stressful.

They won all 16 events they took part in against the Foxes. Sophomore Mya Bokerman captured first place in both the one-meter and three-meter dive with scores of 292.82 and 285.08, respectively. Graduate student Allison Lin took home first place in the 200 freestyle at 1:53.14 and the 200 individual medley at 2:07.36, while Zebrowski won the 200 butterfly at 2:07.36 and the 100 freestyle at 52.50.

Also winning multiple events was graduate student Manon Compagner, who finished first in the 50 freestyle with a time of 23.71 and the 100 butterfly with a time of 56.82.

It was then a quick two-day turnaround for Fordham’s first road meet of the season against Monmouth University in New Jersey. Both the men and women won handily against Monmouth, with each squad improving to 3-0 on the season. Top performers for the Fordham men’s team included Taylor and senior Alex Wilhelm.

Taylor won both the 100 backstroke at 50.36 and the 200 backstroke at 1:52.93, in addition to being a part of Fordham’s victorious 200 medley relay team.

Wilhelm finished first in the 200 individual medley and tied with junior Alex Shah for top spot in the 100 freestyle. For the women’s team, Shaughnessy once again swept both breaststroke events, winning the 100 at 1:04.62 and the 200 at 2:22.21. Another top performer was Zebrowski, who placed first in both the 50 freestyle and the 100 butterfly.

Fordham will be back in action on Saturday, Nov. 4 with a meet against the Georgetown University Hoyas in Washington, D.C.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Both the men and women’s teams have gotten off to a strong start with three wins.

SPORTS

October 25, 2023

Page 19

Women’s Tennis Endures Tough Week, Hits First Rough Patch

By JONAH RING STAFF WRITER

The rough performance of Fordham’s Women’s Tennis these past few days may be best explained by recalling this past weekend’s weather. For those who dared to venture outside Friday and Saturday, they were met with a melancholic gray sky that interrupted the overall sublime autumnal beauty that has recently taken over campus with the leaves beginning to turn over into brilliant shades of crimson and vermilion, the sun starting to hang lower and cast long and picturesque shadows.

Similarly, those that followed the exploits of the women’s tennis team this past weekend likewise saw the sublime interrupted, being met with an ugly and frustrating weekend that disrupted what has been an overall brilliant season so far.

Elaborating on this, Fordham found themselves competing in two separate tournaments this past weekend, with those who qualified for the ITA Super Regionals traveling north along the winding banks of the Hudson to West Point to compete in this prestigious tournament, while those who sadly failed to qualify staying back in the Bronx to defend the hallowed grounds of Rose Hill in the Fordham Fall Classic.

However, as aforementioned, these tournaments played out

rather disappointingly for the Rams, as they were only able to scrape together six individual victories across the plethora of matches that they played in.

Looking first at the ITA Super Regionals at U.S. Military Academy West Point, Fordham boasted three total competitors in the tournament, as graduate student Raffaela Alhach’s deep run in the singles bracket and senior Rose Hu and freshman Anlin Xie’s respective dominance on the doubles portion of the Northeast Regionals qualified them for the event.

Unfortunately, however, nobody made it past the first round of this competition, as Alhach fell in her first round match against Boston College’s Michelle Kleynerman 2-6, 6-3, 2-6, while Hu and Xie sadly did not find a way to triumph in their heartbreaking 7-5, 4-6, (8)-(10) loss to a Dartmouth duo.

The story was not much different back home in the Bronx in the Fordham Fall Classic, as the Rams encountered the same distinct lack of success.

First and foremost, across the the two days of singles competition, Fordham went a collective 3-11, having to wait till the second day of the tournament (Sunday) to find themselves in the win column with Hu’s 6-2, 6-2 victory over New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) Shivani Ingle, senior Eleni Fasoula’s 6-0, 7-5 win over Shalom Salvi of NJIT and graduate student

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Fordham Women’s Tennis saw disappointing results as the Rams faced their first real setback of the season.

Demetria Jhaveri’s 6-4, 6-2 triumph over Asima Sazan of NJIT. Apart from these three matches, the sledding was beyond rough, with some of the team’s normally strong competitors uncharacteristically struggling to assert themselves: veteran leaders junior Lorraine Bergman and graduate student Franny Shea were unable to collect a win across their four combined matches, freshman phenoms Xie and Julianne Nguyen both stumbled in their respective singles appearances, etc.

The team’s doubles performance, while still disappointing, was admittedly much better, as while the Rams still

Fordham Volleyball Loses to Saint Louis, Bounces Back Against George Washington

By BRETT TULIP STAFF WRITER

Fordham Volleyball played back-to-back matches last Friday and Saturday on the road against Saint Louis University and just barely lost both. Each went to a full five sets and was back and forth throughout. However, they managed to defeat George Washington University in both matches this past weekend.

Starting with the first match against Saint Louis, the Rams began streaky, something that would, unfortunately, set the tone for the first weekend. Inconsistency plagued Fordham throughout, going on short scoring runs in the first set but eventually falling 25-18. Similarly, they failed to close out the second, losing 25-17. In the third, a rhythm was finally established, with the Rams going on a 15-3 run led mostly by sophomore Audrey Brown, freshman Whitney Woodrow and senior Whitley Moody. The third ended 25-19, with the fourth set going similarly as a 25-22 win for Fordham. For the win of the day, with everything on the line, the team just fell short. The fifth set

ended 18-16, and Fordham was unable to put the Billikens away when leading 16-15. Saint Louis scored three straight points and came out on top with the 3-2 win.

The next day, Fordham would face the same disappointing fate. A 3-2 loss started with two straight Saint Louis wins of 2520 and 27-25. The Rams would win the next two, 25-18 and 2520. However, they lost 15-9 in the fifth set. Moody again played well, landing 20 kills on the day, while Woodrow would have 43 assists.

Fordham played solid in both losses, but the negative impact in the bigger picture is starting to materialize. The team played exceptionally in non-conference play, darting off to a 10-1 start, a huge improvement for the program compared to years past.

The losses were starting to stack up, making the wins against George Washington that much more important.

The first match against George Washington was certainly a nailbiter, but the Rams were able to pull out the 3-2 victory through five sets. Brown again played stellar, with 22 kills. Woodrow

also finished with 47 assists, being a key contributor throughout.

In the second match, Fordham came ready to play and crushed their opponent 3-0. All were close, as the scores of the three sets were 26-24, 25-16 and 2523, respectively. It was a great sign to see the Rams able to close out matches and put away teams that they previously had trouble sweeping.

Overall, the team’s inability to succeed against some middling A-10 programs like Saint Louis is a sign of concern, but the promise shown against George Washington gives reason to believe hope lies ahead. They are currently in the hardest stretch of their schedule, so some struggle was expected. The next few weeks will prove to be instrumental in how this season finishes, as they have multiple beatable opponents coming up in the University of Rhode Island and Davidson College. The Rams currently stand at 14-7 on the year and 5-6 in conference play. Fordham will hope to build off the two wins against George Washington and continue with what was once a red-hot start.

boasted a losing record, its tally was a respectable three wins and four losses. However, not unlike the singles side, all of their wins only came on the second day of the competition, with the pairing of Alhach and Shea winning a closely contested 6-4 battle, the duo of Fasoula and Camila Baeza eeking out a tight 7-6(3) victory, and the twosome of freshmen Cindy Zhou and Nguyen winning with relative ease in a 6-2 thrashing.

Now moving away from the objective, one can only hope that this was but a slight blip in the season for the Rams and nothing more.

Generally speaking, these

sorts of rather rough outings can linger with a team for a while, especially if they occurred when playing within the greystone confines of your own campus and atop your own courts. However, it is imperative that the Rams make like a goldfish and quickly forget these disappointing results, as they have a quick turnaround, traveling up north this week to compete in the ITF W60 Toronto.

I, for one, expect them to bounce back in a big way on this international stage, as there is simply too much talent on this team — both in terms of the players and the coaches — for there to be a prolonged proverbial slide.

Golf Has Impressive Showing at SHU Fall Classic

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

Fordham Golf had another positive performance this fall beginning on Oct. 15 at the SHU (Sacred Heart University) Invitational in Connecticut.

The team finished in fourth place out of 10 teams at the three-day event, with three Rams finishing in the top 17 of the 54-player field.

Fordham found themselves in sixth place as a team after day one of the competition, but solid play on days two and three ensured that they finished higher up the table. The team came in one spot above Sacred Heart’s B team in seventh and one spot below Fairfield University in fourth.

This was Fordham’s best team showing since the Hartford Hawks Invite in September when they finished in second place.

That competition only had five teams, so this was Fordham’s best showing of the season at a large-scale event.

Winning the individual title was the University of Rhode

Island’s Bryson Richards, who finished at -3 one stroke ahead of Sacred Heart’s Marcus Lim. Sacred Heart claimed the team title, though. Their tally of 865 points was enough to beat Rhode Island in second place.

Junior Chris Konefal was Fordham’s top performer, finishing in 11th place at +9. He matched a career-low round in the second by posting a 70. Behind him was freshman Felix Luetke-Meyring who came in at +12 for a tie of 15th place.

Junior Jake Mrva finished one stroke behind Luetke-Meyring at +13 in a tie for 17th place. Earlier this season, Mrva became the first Ram to claim an individual title since 2017 when he won the Hartford Hawks Invite.

Behind Mrva were freshman Tucker Silva in 38th place at +27 and AJ DePaolo in 47th place at +36.

Fordham’s fall season will wrap up at the end of the month at the Veterans Intercollegiate Tournament on Long Island beginning on Oct. 30.

SPORTS

Page 20

October 25, 2023

Football Defeats Stony Brook, Prepares for Holy Cross

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

The past two weeks for Fordham Football have been the calm before the storm in many ways.

After defeating Stony Brook University 26-7 on Oct. 14 away from home, Fordham had a free Saturday this past weekend thanks to their second bye week of the season. The Rams will now gear up for their biggest game of the season thus far: a mammoth clash with the College of the Holy Cross on Saturday, Oct. 28, at Moglia Stadium.

Against Stony Brook, Fordham moved past the Seawolves amidst a steady flow of rain. The game had a slightly old-school feel to it, with the Rams doing most of their damage on the ground. Junior running back Julius Loughridge led the way with 154 yards rushing and two touchdowns, while freshman Jamell James contributed 44 yards and a score.

Fordham’s defense also played a key role, forcing three turnovers and limiting Stony Brook to just seven points.

And while the final score of 26-7 may flatter Fordham, the game was a lot closer until the late stages. Both teams struggled

to get their offenses going in the first half, with Fordham taking a slim 6-0 lead into the second quarter thanks to two field goals from senior Brandon Peskin. A Stony Brook touchdown from quarterback Casey Case to receiver Anthony Johnson put Stony Brook on top early in the second quarter, and that score would remain going into the halftime break.

In the third quarter, Fordham drove deep into Stony Brook territory on a 12-play drive, but a touchdown was nullified thanks to an offensive pass interference penalty from graduate student Garrett Cody. Fordham then attempted a field goal from Peskin, but it was blocked by Stony Brook keeping the score at 7-6.

Fordham then got the ball back after a defensive stop.

They were forced to punt, but a roughing the kicker penalty on Stony Brook resulted in a fresh set of downs. Fordham took advantage of that break and marched down the field, taking over seven minutes to do so.

On the last play of the third quarter, Loughridge punched the ball in from six yards out to give Fordham a 12-7 lead. The Rams went for two in order to

make it a seven-point game, but the attempt was unsuccessful.

Fordham’s defense then took over in the fourth quarter. Case was strip sacked by junior Matt Jaworski, and sophomore Colby Spencer jumped on the loose ball on Stony Brook’s 12-yard line for the turnover.

With just 12 yards to the endzone, Fordham took no time at all in extending their lead.

Loughridge picked up his second touchdown of the day on a two-yard run, making the score 19-7 Fordham.

Jaworski struck again on the next possession, once again sacking Case and forcing the fumble.

This one was recovered by sophomore Sam Buerkle on the Stony Brook 19-yard line. Again with a short field, James carried the ball for the 19-yard score on the first play of Fordham’s drive. In an instant, Fordham found themselves with a 26-7 lead thanks almost entirely to the play of their defense.

The Rams then iced the game with a five-minute possession that concluded with a kneel down to send Fordham home happy as 26-7 winners.

After the game, Fordham head coach Joe Conlin commented

on his defense’s ability to force turnovers against the Seawolves.

“It felt great,” he said. “We know what those guys are capable of.

Our defensive line, we’ve been challenging them for the last couple of weeks to be more active in the pass rush and they really came through.”

Now, the focus shifts to Holy Cross. The Crusaders had their 18-game Patriot League-winning streak snapped on Saturday with a 38-35 home loss to Lafayette.

Because of that, it’s Lafayette who currently sits atop the Patriot League. Holy Cross will have something to prove against Fordham this Saturday.

The Rams lost a heart breaker

to Holy Cross last season in Massachusetts, a result that essentially handed the Patriot League title to the Crusaders.

This Holy Cross team appears to be more human after they’ve lost three games already this season.

For Fordham, a win against the Crusaders would be a statement about their intentions this season. It’s also family weekend, so the crowd at Moglia Stadium should be a big one.

Fordham and Holy Cross are set to kickoff at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The game can be streamed live on ESPN+ or listened to on WFUV 90.7 FM.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Fordham improved to 5-2 with a road win over Stony Brook on Oct. 14.

Water Polo Holds Strong in West Coast Gauntlet

By LOU ORLANDO ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

After a very strong six weeks to open the season, Fordham Water Polo braced for their toughest test yet — a trip out to the West Coast to play some of the nation’s top programs. The trip to California featured six games, all against nationally ranked opponents, including a match against last year’s NCAA champion University of California.

Five of the six teams entered the weekend ranked above the Rams with the only exception being #17 Santa Clara University, just one spot behind #16 ranked Fordham.

Head coach Brian Bacharach has been eyeing this gauntlet since the start of the season.

“It was by design that we chose this weekend. The idea being to see how we can do against top competition, and doing it late in October when we’re healthy and in peak condition,” Bacharach said.

The Rams rolled into the trip with a checkmark on both counts.

With two more wins the previous week, Fordham extended their winning streak to 10 games, nine coming against Mid-Atlantic

Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) opponents. Arguably more important, junior goalkeeper Thomas Lercari, named First Team AllMAWPC last season, had just made his season debut after an upper body injury sidelined him for over a month.

When it was all said and done, the Rams would take just two of their six California games. But the record doesn’t quite tell the story.

Action began on Wednesday night against #15 University of Pacific.

Pacific entered the year ranked #6 in the CWPA preseason polls, but had dropped nine spots on the heels of a four-game losing streak.

Fordham would grab a fourthquarter lead twice thanks to markers from juniors Luca Silvestri and Jacopo Parrella. Pacific, however, proved difficult to dispense of, evening the match at 10 before netting a man-up goal with 39 seconds left to give the Tigers an 11-10 lead. The Rams came mere inches away from sending the contest into overtime as sophomore Balazs Berenyi hit the post with seven seconds left. Pacific converted an empty net goal as time expired to secure a 12-10 victory, snapping Fordham’s 10-game

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Jacopo Parrella and Fordham Water Polo won two games in California.

winning streak.

Fordham returned the very next day to take on #2 Cal, the reigning water polo champions of the NCAA. The Rams kept things close early as junior George Papanikolaou netted a last-second shot to tie things at four following one quarter of play. Cal would pull away to an 8-6 lead at halftime on two goals in the final 90 seconds, and carried that momentum into the third quarter, jumping out to a 12-7 lead.

The Rams showed some fight, clawing back within three on Silvestri’s third goal, but Cal responded quickly with the next four goals en route to a 18-11 win.

Papanikolaou and Silvestri both posted hat tricks, but the Rams struggled to compete for the game’s entirety against last year’s champs. Friday marked the start of the Julian Fraser Memorial Tournament. #14 San Jose State University was first on the docket, handing Fordham their third straight loss in a tight 10-8 contest.

The Rams once again put themselves in a position to win with the game tied at eight late in the fourth quarter. San Jose State grabbed a 9-8 lead with 1:38 left in the fourth quarter, and the Rams were unable to respond, coming up empty on two man-advantage opportunities.

The Spartans added a penalty shot goal to secure the win as Fordham fell in another close but frustrating contest.

Despite a frustrating 0-3 start to the west coast swing, the Rams would wipe the slate clean, picking up a pair of wins against #13 Cal Baptist University and #17 Santa Clara University to turn things back in their favor.

The Rams flexed their offensive muscles in their largest win of the trip, posting an astounding seven goals in the second quarter, to help clinch a 15-10 victory. Barnabas Eppel shined in the finest game of his freshman season, posting a game-high five goals, four of which came in the second quarter, while Papanikolaou added a hat trick of his own.

Their victory against Santa Clara didn’t come as easy, as the Rams found themselves trailing 7-4 at halftime. Fordham flipped the script in the second half, outscoring the Broncos 8-3 in the second half, completing the Saturday sweep with a 12-10 comeback victory.

Eppel shined once again, posting a hat trick to cap off an eightgoal day, while Papanikolaou added six points in another impressive performance.

Sunday left just one final matchup against #4 Pepperdine University, a rematch of the Rams season opener in which Fordham fell 16-10.

Trailing 15-13 with 2:38 left in the contest, Fordham was able to hold Pepperdine scoreless, but junior Lucas Nieto Jasny hit the post twice in the final minutes. He converted on a late man-up goal to cut the lead to one, but it proved to be too little, too late, as Pepperdine escaped with a 15-14 win. Silvestri had four goals accompanied by hat tricks from Nieto Jasny and senior Christos Loupakis in yet another hard fought loss.

Despite two gritty wins, it’s the tight losses that stand out most from this trip. “It was a tough week,” remarked Bacharach. “We lost some games that we really shouldn’t have.”

In three of their four losses,

Fordham trailed by just one goal in the final minute and had late opportunities to either tie or win.

Bacharach conceded that their late game play left something to be desired.

“We could’ve won four or five games. I think the message is that we need to learn how to win those one-goal games. In games that were close in the fourth quarter, we were 1-3. So that’s an area of improvement we need to continue to get better at.”

That’s not to say that the Rams shouldn’t be incredibly proud of how they battled. “It was an exhausting week,” admitted Bacharach.

Fordham played six games over five days, all against ranked opponents. “I think that was one of my biggest lessons learned. I don’t think we’ve ever scheduled so tough when we’re going out to California.”

“I actually think it was more difficult mentally than physically,” Bacharach said in a moment of reflection. “It’s just like day after day, you’re having to be on point against these top teams. It can be tough and it was. We’ll probably make some adjustments to it next year.”

The Rams still hold a 16-7 record overall and, thanks to some competitive play from a fully healthy roster, have proven that they can in fact compete with the very upper echelon of water polo programs.

Fordham will look ahead now to closing out their season with the MAWPC tournament just three weeks away.

Protecting a perfect record in conference play, they’ll play three of their four remaining MAWPC games this weekend.