Volume 105 Issue 9

Fordham Que(e)ry Presents Results from LGBTQ+ Survey

By SOFIA DONOHUE ASST. NEWS EDITOR

On March 30, a group of students presented the results from a survey of over 300 LGBTQ+ Fordham students. The Fordham Que(e)ry is a follow-up from the 2013 Que(e)ry survey completed by Jeff Lockhart. The Que(e)ry included a range of questions pertaining to the goal of improving the LGBTQ+ experience at Fordham and seeing how the LGBTQ+ experience has changed over the last 10 years.

The event, facilitated by Benedict Reilly, FCRH ’23, presented the preliminary findings of the survey. Four students made up the Que(e)ry team: Lilly Gieseke, FCRH ’23, Fareea Khan, FCRH ’24, Ethan Hammett, FCRH ’23, and Reilly.

The survey received 333 valid responses from Fordham undergraduate and graduate students from both campuses. Although the focus of The Que(e)ry was gender and sexual minority students, the survey was open to everyone.

SEE QUE(E)RY, PAGE 6

The Fordham Ram

Serving The Fordham University Community Since 1918

TheFordhamRam.com

RHA Plans Inaugural Rose Ball for Students

By GRACE GALBREATH ASST. NEWS EDITOR

In a USG meeting on Thursday, Feb. 9, a delegate for the Residence Hall Association (RHA) said that Under the Tent, their annual formal on Martyrs’ Lawn, will be replaced with a more costeffective formal.

The new formal, Fordham’s Inaugural Rose Ball, is set to take place on April 29. RHA has made many structural changes to the annual formal. The event will now be indoors, in the McShane Campus Center, but will still include food, music and drinks.

Executive President of RHA, Salvatore Imbornone III, FCRH ’23, said that RHA has been working hard to plan the event.

By SOFIA DONOHUE DIGITAL PRODUCER

He said, “To honor our campus we have decided to name the event The Rose Ball. The location will be in McShane Ballroom and will be a formal night of dance, music, food and friends. Due to feedback from our last dance, we will have a DJ all hours of the event so students can dance the night

SEE ROSE, PAGE 6

How Fordham’ s Graduate Student Workers Are Unionzing

By RINA LOKAJ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Benjamin Van Dyne, a Ph.D. graduate student in Fordham’s theology department and a father of two young boys, was assigned to teach a class during summer 2022. A few weeks before he was supposed to start teaching, Fordham canceled

the class, meaning he would not receive the $7,000 he was expecting to earn. Van Dyne said that left him in a big financial hole.

“I was scrambling to pay back the money that I had basically put on my credit card to pay rent and to buy groceries for me and the kids for the summer,” Van Dyne said.

Van Dyne says his scramble to make money continued into the autumn. In fall 2022, he was teaching his assigned class at Fordham, two more classes at two different universities in New York City and worked 20 hours a week at a church to make ends meet. “Then I

SEE GRADUATE, PAGE 3

Fordham Hosts Conversation with Justice Sotomayor

By ISABEL DANZIS EDITOR IN CHIEF

President Tania Tetlow hosted a conversation with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Fordham University’s School of Law’s annual Robert L. Levine Distinguished Lecture Series on March 31, 2023.

Tetlow sat with students and faculty to facilitate the conversation while Sotomayor joined virtually.

“The Bronx has shaped me in every important way,” said Sotomayor.

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On March 23, Commuting Student Association had their first event, Rams Blockfest.

Fordham’ s Commuting Student Association Hosts Commuter Month

By EMMA KIM

NEWS EDITOR

Commuting Student Association (CSA) is hosting programming for Commuter Month from late March into April. Last year, CSA had a Commuter Week,

but they recently expanded the event into a month.

This year Commuter Month is paying homage to 2020’s RamFest, which was the theme of their 2020 Commuter Week celebration. The month will have four festival-themed events

throughout the month, including Rams Blockfest, Spudfest, NYC Street Food Fest and Movie Mania Filmfest from March 23 to April 12. The first event, Rams Blockfest, took place on March 23 on McShane Lawn, where there was ice cream

SEE CSA, PAGE 5

Tetlow opened the conversation by asking Sotomayor how her experience growing up in the Bronx impacts her view of the law.

Page 5

Sotomayor said growing up in public housing in the Bronx exposed her to different types of people, and she saw how they were all affected by the law. She said seeing the law’s effects on people in the Bronx became a part of her legal philosophy, meaning that she considers the human impact whenever she makes a ruling. Sotomayor also added that people have dubbed her “Sonia from the Bronx,” which she has embraced throughout her career.

Tetlow asked Sotomayor about

Page 15

Page 20

In April 2022, Fordham Graduate Student Workers Union held an election to officially establish the union.

PUBLIC SAFETY BRIEFS

March 29

Ram Van Office

4:00 p.m.

On Wednesday, a student reported the loss of a black backpack containing lacrosse balls. The student exited a Ram Van and left it on the sidewalk to be returned to storage. When the student returned the backpack was missing. A review of the video disclosed that the backpack was thrown in the dumpster. A search of the dumpster revealed it had been emptied.

March 30 Post 3

5:45 p.m.

On Thursday, the Post 3 guard requested assistance for two juveniles that had entered the campus and refused to leave. The supervisor responded. Both juveniles were disrespectful and taunted public safety members by entering and exiting Post 3 and refusing to leave the area. The NYPD responded and the offenders fled the scene.

April 1

Duane Library

3:32 a.m.

On Saturday, a fire alarm went off in Duane Library. The supervisor and FDNY responded. Investigation revealed that the exhaust ventilation fan that cools the room had been turned off. The ventilation system was turned back on, and the supervisor reset the fire panel.

The Curran Center for Catholic American Studies hosts student trip to El Salvador

Wednesday April 5

Bahoshy Field 3 p.m.

Women’s softball is competing against Hofstra University this Wednesday at Bahoshy Field. Come cheer on your fellow Rams in this highly competitive A-10 game.

By MICHELA FAHY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

By ALEXANDRA RAPP CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Over the spring break, Fordham’s Curran Center for Catholic American Studies (CACS), a concentration program, enabled enrolled students to experience an academic opportunity which culminated in a week-long trip to El Salvador. The class, which prefaced the trip, was taught by Michael Lee, Ph.D., director of the Francis & Ann CACS and affiliate to the Latin American and Latino Studies Institute. It was the result of CACS student leaders’ proposal of a trip dedicated to learning more about several Catholic saints of El Salvador.

Lee said he credits the students with proposing the trip with the aim of learning more about Maura Clarke. Concentrators in the CACS program all participate in Catholic Studies Seminar I, where students are introduced to American Catholic narratives, both of North and South America. Lee and several students echoed how transformative this first class was, particularly in the semester-long reading of the biography of Clarke.

“I was really moved by our semester-long reading of the biography of Maura Clarke, a woman from a context similar to mine, born in Queens, who entered religious life and gave herself to Christ and the poor of Central America. Her approach was not self-aggrandizing but was one of accompaniment. She was murdered by the El Salvadoran government, as were thousands of other civilians. Her story and those of many others make El Salvador the nexus of Christian praxis in the Western Hemisphere,” said Benedict Reilly, FCRH ’23.

Other students who participated in the trip and class echoed a similar admiration for Clarke’s story and the importance of El Salvador in understanding other ways of being Catholic. When asked why they chose to spend their spring break in El Salvador, Anna Nowalk, FCLC ’23, recounted a popular CACS reflection question: “What’s one word that’s been on your heart?” Her response to that question was “pilgrimage.” She went on to

explain that while it was a class, it was also a spiritual experience for her and many other people there. “I wanted to be changed in some way,” said Nowalk.

The course leading up to the El Salvador trip was designed to deepen student knowledge before going to the site of rich Catholic and Jesuit history. During the Salvadoran civil war, on Nov. 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were slaughtered at their residence on campus of the José Simeon Cañas, Central American University (UCA). When asked of a moment that was particularly moving, Lee identified when the group visited the rose garden at UCA where the murders took place. He said that being there felt like a renewal of vows and explained that the group was a part of the Jesuit community too and that being in a powerful place of pilgrimage inspires to recommit to the vision.

Students stayed with home families during their time. Nowalk explained her most moving moment during the trip:

“Our homestay mother told us a really terrible story that had occurred to someone — torture and rape — and later Dr. Lee mentioned that he had talked to her. We had asked her her story at the dinner table and didn’t really get super deep into it, but later we were talking around a circle and Dr. Lee told us about her story. She had a very brutal story that she had not told us — it struck me to be able to talk about other people’s stories but not be able to talk about your own. Looking back and seeing the pain in reflection,” said Nowalk.

When asked to discuss these moving moments, many students said there was a common feeling that the trip was deeply intense, emotionally and religiously for students who got to see their class readings come to life.

Many students echoed the importance of community engagement including this type of work and travel. When asked if Fordham students should participate, Reilly said:

“Yes. I think Global Outreachtype trips are important to foster Global Citizens, especially Global Outreach trips with part-

in the Jesuit network. This particular trip, visiting the University of Central America José Simeón Cañas, where the priests were murdered by U.S.-trained soldiers, is especially powerful because of how its reality has been a call-toaction for Jesuit Universities across the world and especially in the United States” Nowalk said: “People don’t have to go study abroad, but I do think people have to be very mindful of what’s happening in their communities. I’ve been given these stories, but there are so many people and so many

This Week at Fordham

Saturday April 8

Houlihan Park 12:00 p.m.

Come cheer on men’s baseball as they take on The University of Rhode Island. Support the Fordham Rams by attending the game on their home turf.

Wednesday April 12 University Church 2 p.m-5 p.m.

Celebrate Faith Fest 2023 by joining Campus Ministry for a day of service. Help prepare Mosholu Parkway for spring by collaborating with Bronx is Blooming to clean up the park.

Friday April 14 Edward’s Parade 12 p.m-4 p.m.

Pet Advocacy for Underprivileged Survivors is hosting a spring festival. The event will include a bake sale and face painting. All funds raised will go to Bronx Tails Cat Rescue.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Salvador.

stories of who have suffered and found joy and hope and have these incredible stories. but we as humans are limited, so I don’t think it has to be another country so long as you are being intentional about learning.” Intentionality and thoughtful discernment are hallmarks of CACS student education. The Center for Community Engaged Learning continues to collaborate with other departments and aims to expand opportunities for students going forward. When asked if something like this is possible again, Lee said “Definitely.”

Saturday April 15

Fordham Plaza 12 p.m-4 p.m.

The Bronx Night Market and the Fordham Road Business Improvement District are hosting Bronx Celebration Day on Saturday. The annual event will include performers!

Maura Clarke dedicated her life to organizing missionary trips to El

ners

COURTESY OF FACEBOOK Fordham’s CACS helped plan the student’s missionary trip to El Salvador.

How Fordham’ s Graduate Student Workers Are Unionizing

FROM GRADUATE, PAGE 1 have a federally backed right to unionize.”

had side gigs every weekend, just picked up work wherever I could get it,” Van Dyne said. “And did all of that, while trying to have enough time to also work on my own research on my dissertation proposal.”

Van Dyne explains that this experience is nothing new when it comes to working for Fordham. He says insufficient pay and a lack of respect are reasons why he and almost 250 other students have decided to join the Fordham Graduate Student Workers Union (FGSW). “We need to convince Fordham that our work here matters,” Van Dyne said. “Because we know it matters, and our students know it matters. But Fordham administration seems to not think it matters.”

The members of the FGSW are now in active negotiations with members of the Fordham administration, trying to hammer out the FGSW’s first contract. Details of the negotiations are confidential, but the union said it is fighting for fair working conditions against a university that is not interested in them. Fordham University said this is not the case.

The Ram attended the Student Town Hall earlier this week with President Tania Tetlow where Tetlow said that she wants to see negotiations come to fruition soon, though she declined to comment on specific issues while negotiations are ongoing.

“So we’ve gone through months of painstaking negotiations,” Tetlow said. “I will say that it’s hard to predict when that will come to an agreement, I hope very soon. I hope that we will find a way, do everything we can to make our graduate program as good and supportive and functioning and fair and within the market as we possibly can.”

Bob Howe, assistant vice president for communications and special advisor to the president, also said the university is working with the union and will continue to do so.

“We are in active negotiations with the graduate student union, and are optimistic we will reach an agreement,” Howe said in a statement to The Fordham Ram. “The resident assistants filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): the University will respond to the petition and the NLRB will schedule an election sometime this semester. You should know regarding both unions, that it can take a year or more to negotiate the first contract with a new bargaining unit.” Howe declined to comment further, given the ongoing negotiations.

HISTORY OF THE UNIONIZATION EFFORTS

Graduate students only won the right to unionize a few years ago. In 2016, a group of graduate students at Columbia University brought a petition to the NLRB, asking for the recognition of a union that would allow students to have a say over issues they faced, including health insurance and payment. The NLRB ruled that “students who work as teaching and research assistants at private universities

Since then, the United States has seen an influx of graduate students unionizing, namely in New York City and California.

Mardoqueo Arteaga, a doctoral candidate in economics at Fordham and the president of the graduate student council at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which formally endorsed the unionization effort last year, said that the decision from the NLRB, compounded by a number of other factors since 2016, has spurred the rise of unions across the country.

“It’s not like we’ve had anything amazing happening for generations like ours,” Arteaga said. “We had a very difficult presidential cycle, with Trump coming on board. You have COVID, and COVID definitely instigated some panic in terms of jobs. It’s difficult in the world at the moment.”

Arteaga says that many students are feeling the implications of the lack of jobs and low-paying salaries. “People are doing grad school at a very peculiar time in their life, mostly in their 20s, some in their early 30s,” Arteaga said. “But these are times when you want to be able to at least have some sort of stability.”

M. Gaby Hurtarte Leon, a doctoral candidate in English and the Vice President of the Graduate Student Council (GSC), said that members of FGSW felt these effects and decided that they, too, should unionize. “There were a lot of things that we were noticing that weren’t great,” Leon said. “And we were like, well, we are actually workers. So we should be able to demand things as workers.”

A year before the COVID-19 outbreak, Leon said that some students from the English department started sharing their grievances about their working conditions with students from the philosophy department. The

pandemic halted any sort of action from taking place, but once students began returning to campus, Leon said their efforts to unionize became much more active. “It was a well-structured organization, in terms of meetings,” Leon said. “We identified who the organizers were, and who we were trying to get to and figured out how many students we were missing from the bargaining unit.”

Van Dyne said that this newfound energy was partly due to many students being asked to do much more work to prepare for online and hybrid teaching and receiving no compensation for their time. “In compensation for that extra work, all we mainly got was just people emailing us to say, hey, thanks,” Van Dyne said.

In 2021, the graduate students interested in unionizing worked with the Communications Workers of America to establish an organizing committee of about 40 members. In February 2022, the group launched what is known as a card campaign, where students could officially indicate that they wanted to form a union. In April, FGSW held an election to officially establish the union, where graduate students voted 229 to 15 in favor of unionizing.

Leon said the whole process was quite inspiring. “It was really beautiful to see how it came from like, ‘let’s meet up at Rodrigue’s [Coffee House]’ four years ago, and then seeing it sort of die down, and then suddenly just be picked up again,” Leon said.

SALARY AND PAYMENT ISSUES

One of the biggest issues that motivated Fordham graduate students to unionize was their salaries. Van Dyne said he earns a stipend of about $29,000 a year after taxes. While students are paid for working 19 hours a week and are not supposed to exceed that number of hours, Van Dyne said they are routinely required to

work more than that to finish all that they are supposed to handle. “So we are potentially in trouble for working the wrong number of hours no matter what we do,” Van Dyne said. He says this takes a toll on him and his ability to teach. “I’m really tired of walking my kids to school and keeping such close track of every penny, that when we’re on the way to school and [my son] Oscar says ‘I’m hungry,’ I’m calculating my monthly income while deciding if we can stop for a bite,” Van Dyne said. “I don’t do my best research that way. I don’t do my best teaching that way.”

Moreover, Van Dyne said graduate student workers routinely have to use their own money to buy school supplies. “There is no support in the biggest or smallest senses of the word,” Van Dyne said. “Ranging from the fact that I can’t make a living all the way down to, I’ve now taught seven semesters, and I’ve never once been supplied with a dry-erase marker I didn’t pay for.”

Professor Ebru Turan, director of graduate studies in the department of history, said that the departments themselves have no knowledge or say over how much money the graduate students earn. “I assume they are not getting paid much, I can tell you that much,” Turan said. “The department tries to support them in every way that we can. But when it comes to financial matters, it is out of our hands.”

Other graduate students expressed other complaints about their treatment by the university. Olivia Geraci, a master’s student at the center for medieval studies, explained that not only are there issues with how much students get paid but also with the timeliness with which they do. She explained that Fordham often does not pay their student workers on time.

“I know that timely pay has definitely been an issue for a lot of people in a lot of departments at Fordham,” she said. Geraci added that this could affect people living paycheck-topaycheck.

The Ram reached out to Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Ann Gaylin in order to find out how salary decisions were made. Gaylin declined to comment while the negotiating sessions are underway.

PROBLEMS INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS ARE FACING

International graduate students face a unique set of issues regarding housing and said that Fordham has not supported them adequately. In New York City, a tenant generally must make 40 times the rent, or a guarantor must make between 80 and 100 times the rent before a student is allowed to sign a lease. The stipend being paid by Fordham would not allow most graduate students to meet the income requirements on most apartment rentals, but Turan explained that international students usually cannot depend on guarantors either because their families and other people they may know and trust potentially do not live in America.

“You have to have a past here to rent an apartment,” Turan said. “And these people are outsiders, they have, like, no record here.” She said that there has been discussion within the departments to see if there are any actions that can be taken by faculty. “If we can give them any help in the dormitories, but I don’t know if that has been realized. But this is again like many things at Fordham, it is not in our control,” Turan said.

Javier Calderon Abullarade, a master’s student in the history department, said that low salaries and the university’s limit on working more than 19 paid hours per week have caused him to move back to Guatemala, where he is from, to finish his master’s remotely. Abullarade said that not having these restrictions would have allowed him to stay at Fordham. “It would have allowed me to stay living in New York City, which is important to take advantage of the different opportunities that I have in the university,” Abdullarade said. “And that would have allowed me also to travel back and forth from my country to the United States and do some research that I can only do in American archives.”

During the Virtual Town Hall earlier this week, Tetlow addressed the issues that international students face, though she did not specifically comment on the housing issues. Tetlow said Fordham has been lacking in their support of international students and wants that to change.

“I've heard from a lot of angles, not just in the graduate school, but the undergraduate too, that we have fallen a little behind in our support of international students, so we are making those things a priority in our budget next year,” Tetlow said. “But the daunting tasks of just how to open a bank account when you don’t have a social security [cont. next page]

FGSW are in active negotiations with the University’s administration for the first FGSW contract.

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number in this country, all the logistics are so painfully hard, especially if you’re doing it in your third or fourth language. We need to do more to support those students.”

Despite this, in a recent email sent out by FGSW, committee members said that Tetlow said that she and Fordham will not prioritize international students.

“Tetlow made clear in ‘office hours’ today that she stands by every decision made by her bargaining team, that she is consulted for every response they give us and that she approves everything they say—particularly that international graduate workers should not expect any support from Fordham University, even when facing being unhoused and food insecurity,” the email stated.

WHAT IS THE UNION SEEKING?

The union members said they have 11 main issues that they are negotiating with the university. Graduate students said the biggest issues the union is looking to resolve are compensation and benefits for international students.

As for salary, Leon said the union is proposing timely pay and a $28 per hour wage for hourly workers or a stipend of $60,000 a year for funded graduate students, which is the livable wage in New York, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Cost of Living Adjustment. The

union’s proposal would also allow Fordham to serve as an institutional guarantor and provide summer funding for international students.

Another issue the union said it wants to address is the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Van Dyne said that the university is unclear as to how and why they use NDAs with regard to victims of harassment and discrimination.

“They keep telling us that they use those agreements, and it’s for the victims’ own good that they’re prevented from speaking,” Van Dyne said.

“And then they’ve also started to say in other settings that, ‘Oh, no, we would never use non-disclosure agreements.’

So it’s not clear what the truth is. What we know is that they’re not willing to put in writing that they will not use them going forward.”

Other proposals the union said it wants to address include timely work assignments, adequate teaching resources and parking passes.

In the email sent out by FGSW, committee members said that President Tetlow said the requested salary increases are excessive. “In response to graduate workers’ demands for higher wages, President Tetlow said our asking for raises is unreasonable,” the email stated.

The Ram approached multiple other university officials for additional comment on

MEDIA WITH A MISSION

these and other specific issues brought up by union organizers, but the university and many professors dealing with graduate education declined to comment further while the negotiations are ongoing.

POINTS OF CONTENTION

FGSW organizers said they face additional challenges — for instance, there are still a number of graduate students who do not know about the union or do not think they could be supported by the union.

Alex DiFiore, a master’s student in the mental health counseling program, said he did not even know about the union until queried about it by the Ram. “I would definitely consider joining, especially once I’m in a Ph.D. program,” DiFiore said. “I feel the only reason that I haven’t before is because I never had any exposure or seen anything about it.”

Others like Calderon Abdullarade, who have heard about the union, say they feel like the union may not be representative of their issues.

“I felt that the union was much more representative of the issues of the Ph.D. students than my issues,” Abdullarade said. “Even though they actually asked me if I had issues because they contacted me, I didn’t feel that I could actually use their support.”

There are also some doubts about the efficiency with

which the union can work, according to Arteaga. Despite being in the union, he said he worries that the union could hinder students from looking toward their futures.

“To fight for a union that is really only going to have some sort of effect for somebody for a year, two years tops, is a very interesting way of spending your time,” Arteaga said. He adds that the temporary nature of graduate school might not work well with the permanence of unionization.

“Leaving the university and finding something stable is what I would consider to be the more useful way of spending your time. But maybe that’s just me being jaded. I mean, I want to be able to support as many students as possible, and perhaps this is an avenue to do so.”

Some of those students who do know about FGSW have negative sentiments surrounding the union, according to Geraci. She said that it is easy for organized labor to be demonized. “I think that there can be a misconception of union members as just being greedy or being lazy,” Geraci said. “And I don’t think that that’s true at all.”

The email sent out by FGSW also stated that Tetlow accused the union members of thinking they are “more important than other students and staff at Fordham.”

The email also stated, “President Tetlow told an FGSW and bargaining committee member that this student and graduate workers writ large are ‘entitled’ and ‘bully’ her and her bargaining team.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

As the graduate student union continues to negotiate a first contract, members of its leadership said they have taken inspiration from Fordham Faculty United (FFU), a union that represents the contingent faculty at the school and recently was able to come to an agreement with Fordham on its second contract.

Geraci said that there is a supportive union spirit among the graduate student organizers and said she was very proud and excited to see FFU succeed in its efforts to achieve fair working conditions. “I think that there’s definitely a lot that we’ll be able to learn from their experience,” Geraci said.

FGSW members said they are going to continue fighting against what they see as unfair working conditions. But Van Dyne said that, until their contract gets approved or the union members are forced to strike, he and others will continue to struggle.

“On a typical day, six days a week, I was starting at 7:45 or 8 a.m. to get the kids off to school, and going until 9 or 10 p.m., six days a week. That’s my situation,” he explained.

Van Dyne said many Fordham graduate students have some version of that story. “For me, it’s kids, but other people have parents to take care of or other stuff, or they have rich full lives that are also worth having. Right?” Van Dyne said. “Everybody deserves a good life. Everybody should make a living wage.”

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from Mister Softee, hot dogs, empanadas, sand art, bracelet making and games. On March 31, Spudfest took place in McShane Gallery, which was a potatothemed fest with food, games and prizes that centered around potatoes. On April 5, the NYC Street Food Fest will take place on McShane Lawn with different NYC-street inspired food, such as Chinatown, Little Italy, Koreatown and Little India. The final event, Movie Mania Filmfest, will take place on April 12 in the McShane Ballroom.

Malia Guebli, FCRH ’23, executive treasurer for CSA, explained the purpose of having the events over a month.

“By having the events scheduled over a month’s time, we hope that students will recognize the value that commuters bring to the Fordham community,” said Guebli. “We decided to change Commuter Week to Commuter Month to alleviate some of the planning pressure, and to ensure that each board is able and available to plan their events with as little conflict as possible.”

Alessandra Carino, executive president, FCRH ’23, also explained the benefits of the switch to a month of events.

“This year CSA did not have a senior board. Since Commuter Week would need 5 events, we thought since a month had 4 weeks, it would be a better fit,” said Carino. “We also

found that a week of programming was very taxing, and since commuters are balancing many responsibilities, it isn’t always feasible to adjust our schedules to be on campus to accommodate the work it requires. So, we thought we would change it to work better for our needs so we could better prove to our community.”

Gueblli added: “We hope that commuters feel that they are represented! Additionally, we hope all students (because our events are open to commuters and residents) enjoy our events and have fun, and learn a little bit about CSA.”

Guebli said that she is involved in CSA because loves representing

the commuter student population and that there are still more events for people to participate in.

“I think it’s important that we get our voices heard, and I’m happy to be one of many members that take part in creating events and working on initiatives for commuters,” said Guebli. “We still have two commuter month events coming up in April, and then our junior board event will also be coming up, so stay updated with the @fordhamcsa Instagram because we always have fun events!”

Angelina Yoon, FCRH ’25, who is a commuter, believes awareness of the subject is important.

“I think commuter awareness is important because the experiences a commuter goes through are dif-

ferent from a traditional dorming student. We learn to adapt and be effective during our long times at school. As commuters make up a large population of Fordham students, it is important to bring to light the challenges commuters face and include commuters in the Fordham social environment," said Yoon.

Overall, Carino said she hopes that commuter students realize that they are appreciated during this month.

“I hope commuters remember that they are being remembered, and even though it can be hard to see. There are students fighting for them that are thankful for their presence and perspective on campus,” said Carino.

Fordham Dining Hosts Premium Dinner Restaurant Nights

By EMMA KIM NEWS EDITOR

Fordham Dining has offered premium dinner restaurant nights at both the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. Most recently, Rose Hill had its second premium dinner restaurant night on March 29, which was sold out.

Rachel Diaz, Aramark marketing manager at Fordham University, explained how the idea came to be and what the dining experience entails.

“The idea originated from the desire to allow students to have a fine dining experience while showcasing our culinary team,” said Diaz. “Additionally, our goal was to make it easy for students to have the opportunity to get plated dinner right on campus with an authentic type restaurant atmosphere and service.”

Diaz said that the premium dinner restaurant nights at Fordham started before the pandemic, and they were officially brought back at the end of last semester.

“We launched our first one of the current academic year in December 2022. Since then, we’ve offered them monthly for all students to enjoy. It’s been exciting, and we’ve seen a tremendous response from students with multiple sold-out reservation slots,” said Diaz.

Diaz explained that the premium dinner restaurant nights consist of a four-course prix fixe plated dinner that students order tableside with a professional waitstaff. There is also music, formal table settings and centerpieces. Students can make a reservation through Eventbrite, where one person can register the whole table.

“We work to convey everything students would expect to see in a

restaurant,” said Diaz.

In addition, the menus always include vegan, gluten-free and dietary-restricted options to ensure that all students can participate. Diaz said that students can reach out with any dietaryrelated questions or concerns. The dinners are also offered at a discounted rate as an added benefit to meal plan holders.

“Unlimited plan holders dine for just a swipe which is essentially free,” said Diaz. “Weekly and block meal plan holders dine for a swipe plus ten declining balance dollars. Any student who doesn’t have a meal plan is welcome to dine with us as well for a flat door rate charge of $25.”

Diaz added that Fordham Dining is planning to have a fourth and final premium dinner restaurant night at each campus at the end of April or the

beginning of May.

“We look to tailor the menu and themes of our nights differently than the last, so we recommend students follow our Instagram @RamDining and keep an eye out for our weekly newsletters for when those details, menus and reservations are released,” said Diaz.

Liliana Kinnan, GSB ’25, and Kiera Reid, GSB ’25, attended the most recent premium dinner restaurant night.

“The dinner was surprisingly very tasty and a bang for your dining dollar buck!” said Kinnan. “I enjoyed the experience thoroughly and liked the amount of effort that went into making the prix fixe menu, and it was inclusive to those with different dietary needs. I think that Fordham should offer them more as a nice deviation from the normal dining options (thinking about the same urban

bowl I get four times a week).”

Reid also said she enjoyed the event and overall experience and said that she would attend the event again.

“The dinner was really nice and so was the service. The quality of the food was great, overall very enjoyable. I think they’re really fun and a great experience. I think Fordham should offer them more often,” said Reid. “I think the cost is fair, especially for the quality of the food. I would definitely do it again.”

At the end of the experience, students are offered feedback cards at each table so that the dining team can receive feedback for planning future events, said Diaz.

Diaz added: “We hope students not only get to take away excellent food and an elevated culinary experience but also long-lasting memories created with friends around the table.”

Fordham Hosts Conversation with Justice Sotomayor

FROM TETLOW, PAGE 1

her experience serving on all three levels of the judiciary: district court, circuit court and the Supreme Court. Sotomayor said that each level of the court system taught her something new. According to Sotomayor, in district court, parties are looking for justice. In the appeals court, facts are not usually contested, and the focus is on finding “justice for the law.” This contrasts with the Supreme Court, where decisions are often about finding the correct direction for laws. Sotomayor said that all these experiences shaped her to be the best judge possible.

Sotomayor also said she is often criticized for being “too focused on the facts” in cases. She said that this practice started when she was a trial lawyer, where she was taught to be a “common law judge.”

Tetlow then asked Sotomayor about the dissents she has been a part of lately. Sotomayor has recently been part of many dissenting opinions, including the highprofile case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that effectively overturned Roe v. Wade.

Sotomayor responded that the most important part of writing anything, but especially a dissenting opinion, is to consider the

audience and the reason for writing.

“What’s my purpose with this dissent [when] the majority has already spoken?” said Sotomayor on the importance of considering whether or not to write a dissenting opinion.

Sotomayor said sometimes her message is meant for lower court judges or agencies to explain why she believes they should change their minds. Sometimes, she said, they are meant to send a message to the public about specific legislation. Other times, she said that her sentiments are aimed at Congress. She cited Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s famous dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. regarding equal pay for women. Later, Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in light of her opinion. Lastly, Sotomayor added that sometimes writing dissenting opinions is important for the future and later interpretation of the law.

Next, the panel was opened for students to ask questions. Ashley Qamar, FSL ’23, president of the Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA), asked how Sotomayor balances being the only Latina voice on the court while not letting that aspect of her identity overshadow her qualifications.

“We are amalgams of our experiences,” said Sotomayor. She said that while being Latina is a big part of her, so are other aspects. She said being a Latina shapes her values, which play into her role as a judge. However, she said she always aims to see the law objectively.

“I had to come to my views on the law not as a Latina but as a lawyer or as a judge,” said Sotomayor.

Next, Sotomayor was asked about what qualities good litigators have. She said that all good litigators, regardless of what side of an issue they are on, have respect for everyone in the courtroom.

“Any advocate will win the respect of the court if their integrity is of the highest honor,” said Sotomayor.

Carlos Rico, FSL ’24, asked what Sotomayor believes is the biggest challenge facing the legal profession and practice in the next five years.

“I don’t know if any of the legal issues we see today will abate,” said Sotomayor.

She said that in the next five years, lawyers will have to continue to deal with uncertainty and that they will have to continue to act with honor. She said

that while she believes that most lawyers are good people and that the profession is honorable, the “selling job” has been bad the last few years. She emphasized that the legal field has to continue to change the common perception of lawyers to maintain the public’s trust.

The last question came from Lauren Burgess, FSL ’23, seeking advice for young lawyers who feel “disillusioned” with the justice system.

“What choice do you have

but to try and make it better?” said Sotomayor.

Sotomayor said that changing the system is the best way to handle disillusionment. She said lawmakers do not have “beautification from God” and can make mistakes, so it is up to lawyers and the legal system to correct them.

“People make laws. Justices are people. And people can get laws wrong,” said Sotomayor. “Wrong things can be changed and that’s what lawyers do.”

On March 31, Tetlow hosted a talk with Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor.

Fordham Que(e)ry Presents Results from LGBTQ+ Survey

FROM

The survey found that there were massive improvements to the LGBTQ+ experience at Fordham, but queer students still experience queerphobia and are also aware of past instances of queerphobia on campus.

“Even if you haven’t experienced that reality [queerphobia], perceptions of that queerphobia have a real effect on the community and we need to understand that too,” said Reilly.

The Que(e)ry findings reflected that racism is ingrained in campus culture and disproportionately impacts queer, trans and BIPOC students. 48.28% students of color report having heard homophobic or transphobic remarks.

The Que(e)ry also found that students trust student-run spaces more than those run by faculty or staff. Peer-organized spaces where LGBTQ+ students felt safe included Women’s Rugby

and Rodrigue’s Coffee House. Alternatively, queer students perceive athletic spaces as unwelcoming.

LGBTQ+ students have heard the use of slurs and anti-queer language while working out in RamFit and attending Fordham sporting events.

LGBTQ+ students also have difficulty living in residence halls which cater towards cisgender and heterosexual students. However, students reflected that the LGBTQ+ student experience is most positively affected by Residential Life staff such as RAs and RDs.

“I think, for a lot of people, going to college is a chance for them to fully embrace their identity. That’s why it’s important that these students find a sense of belonging at Fordham,” said Gieseke.

Therefore, the Que(e)ry team noted the necessity of providing students with on and off-campus mental health resources, curating programs geared

specifically toward building community among trans and gender diverse students and generating a larger awareness of the resources available to students.

“Campus resources are a hard thing to talk about because students don’t even know what campus resources there are,” said Reilly.

Many students relayed having positive experiences as an LGBTQ+ student at Fordham. For example, many students reported faculty and staff as being the first out adult they have had a personal relationship with in their lifetime.

“Students really do value the many faculty and staff who serve as mentors to LGBTQ+ students. I see many people in this crowd who have shown up on this list,” said Reilly.

After the Que(e)ry team summarized their findings, they facilitated a panel dis-

cussion during which panelists reflected on the survey’s findings. The panelists were Joan Cavanagh, Campus Ministry, Santiago Plaza, FCRH ’23, and Tarchithaa Chandra Sekharan, FCRH ’24.

Reflecting on her own personal experience, Cavanagh shared that 25 years ago she was out to only a few select people at Fordham in fear of losing her job.

Cavanagh, who has worked in Campus Ministry for over 25 years, noted the difference between the LGBTQ+ students’ experience 25 years ago versus today.

“In the last 25 years, this cause has advanced greatly. Students wanted to form a pride alliance 25 years ago and they were turned down… I’m proud that so much funding is going towards these issues and that it [Fordham] is so much safer,” said Cavanagh.

The Que(e)ry team opened the

floor for audience Q&A. Students asked questions pertaining to the survey as well as shared instances of queerphobia they’ve witnessed recently. For example, one student shared that he noticed a promotion flier for the Qu(e)ry event in Hughes Hall had been torn off the bulletin board.

Reilly said that the Que(e)ry team plans to continue having conversations with different organizations at Fordham about the results of the report. The Que(e)ry team will present their findings at the Fordham Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 19, 2023 and Ignatian Q on April 23, 2023.

“[Fordham] is a place where many people have come out… a place that is important to people’s personal growth and development, and we need to celebrate that. We need to celebrate the many ways that Fordham welcomes LGBTQ+ students,” said Reilly.

Fordham Senior Researches What Drives Our Brains and Our Responses

By ALICE GAALSWYK STAFF WRITER

For the past two years, Ruby Setara, FCRH ’23, has been working in Dr. Eduardo Gallo’s Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior Lab, studying the specifics of what inside our brains drives our responses and behaviors. In particular, Setara, who is studying biological sciences, is looking at a specific type of neuron, called the ventral pallidum cholinergic projection neuron (VP-CPNs).

According to Setara, understanding the underlying brain mechanisms that drive humans is key to learning more about certain brain disorders like ADHD, depression and substance abuse disorders, because they all have motivational impairment. “When we understand this, we can understand how to treat them.”

The VP-CPNs that Setara studies are located in the ventral pallidum region of the brain, which works by projecting neurons into other parts of the brain that are

known to be associated with cue processing and driving motivated behavior. However, Setara said that these VP-CPNs are not commonly studied in research today, so their role in motivating behavior has not been explored completely.

Previously, Setara received two summer undergraduate research grants to study these VP-CPNs. After her previous research on this topic, she came to conclusions that ultimately led her to have more questions than answers about the role of these neurons in driving motivated behavior. Setara found that VP-CPNs were not required in cue-linked behavior, nor were they required for cue-mediated reinstatement of behavior. This led her to her most recent study that she has been conducting this semester with the Len Blavatnik Research Fellowship. Currently, Setara is working with a cohort of mice that have an optic fiber implanted in their brains to investigate how VP-CPNs act in response to cues, cue-seeking behavior or to the reward itself. “We can use that connection from the mouse with

fiber photometry equipment to visualize those neurons as the mouse is literally doing the behavior task, which is super helpful, because you can see… in real-time,” said Setara.

Setara ran the mice on a task of receiving a reward when they pressed a lever. The goal of this was to see if VP-CPNs were required in reward-predicting stimuli, is a light cue, rewardseeking behavior. When the mice pressed the level, they received milk as a reward. Setara analyzed these signals while the mice were doing the task, and then changed up some of the conditions of the experiment, for instance, pre-feeding the mice with their reward prior to completing the task, which would devalue the reward, or watering down the milk to make the reward less palatable for the mice.

Setara finished running the experiments for this portion of the lab and is currently analyzing the data that she collected. “I’m doing a lot of sorting [for] each trial of the behavior task… so it’s a lot

of data parsing and a lot of comparing across mice and combining cohorts just to get a concrete answer to my question,” said Setara.

Thus far in her data analysis, Setara has been able to preliminarily see that VP-CPNs fire more robustly in response to rewardseeking behavior, which is when the mouse presses the lever, and for the reward itself, but not as much for the cue, which is when the light turns on. “This kind of supports what I found in my summer 2022 project, where I saw that… these neurons weren’t required in a cuelinked task, so my data kind of supports that there’s negligible activity at the cue, but on… cue-seeking and the reward itself, there’s a lot more activity,” said Setara.

Setara said she hopes to complete her data parsing by the FCRH Undergraduate Research Symposium so that she can share some of her preliminary results and findings. She also said she wants to get her research published in a neuroscience journal. In the future, Setara said she wants to have a career in research,

RHA Plans Inaugural Rose Ball for Students

away. And last, as a result of changing directions towards the McShane Ballroom, attendance will be capped, so buy your ticket as soon as they come out!”

The cost of tickets to the new formal has decreased in comparison to the cost of previous years’ ticket prices. Last year, general admission tickets cost $35 and drink tickets cost $45. This year, general admission tickets are $15 and drink tickets are $25. Ticket prices are decreasing nearly $20.

“Due to our mission to make programming more affordable, we have lowered the cost of tickets to $15 (was previously $35), and our drink tickets will be $25,” said Imbornone.

Fordham students have expressed opinions about changes to the formal. Most students

have said that the price change would make them more likely to attend the formal, regardless of its new location.

Cindy Liu, FCRH ’26, said, “Yeah, I would definitely go. $15 is a lot more feasible than $35.”

Samantha Manizza, GSB ’25, said, “I mean, yeah, I would still go, 100%.”

Imbornone also shed some light on RHA’s process for planning and hosting large campuswide events, such as Under the Tent and The Rose Ball.

“As the Executive President of the Residence Halls Association for the past two years, I have overseen Under The Tent and The Rose Ball. As a student government, we felt that Under The Tent took away from our identity as ‘the voice of the halls’ because the dance required resources and manpower that could be more effectively allocated to the

needs of the residents here at Rose Hill. With holding a more cost-effective formal, we can service students with more effective and frequent programming while instilling vast residential hall improvements across campus. In freeing up funding, we are able to allocate more money to hall representatives to better impact their residents as well as hosting campus-wide events such as bingo, movie nights and even an Easter egg hunt,” said Imbornone.

Students interested in attending should get tickets as soon as possible, because of the event’s capacity.

“Tickets will go live soon after Easter Break. Follow @fordhamrha on Instagram and look out for posters for updates like ticket sales,” said Imbornone.

and working as a part of this lab has allowed her to foster a love for neuroscience that goes beyond the classroom. She said she has accepted a job to work as a researcher at Mt. Sinai studying a rare brain tumor, which will allow her to continue her work in neuroscience research but delve into a different topic. Speaking more broadly, Setara said she hopes that her research will lead to a greater understanding of the processes inside the brain regarding motivated behavior. “The more we understand what goes on inside, the more we can target certain behaviors and whatnot, whether it be through drug therapies that target specific neurons or even behavior therapies that can target motivational disfunction; I feel like the research has a lot of potential for finding out what even drives these processes in the first place because we don’t even know, and when we don’t know what causes this, it gets even harder to treat it,” said Setara.

FROM ROSE, PAGE 1

From the Desk | Sofia Donohue

RConnections Formed By Exchanging Books

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.

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When I was little, my mom read me a book before it was time to go to bed. Every night, I pleaded for her to read just one more. Even if the last thing my mom wanted to do was reread a book she’d already read out loud to me dozens of times, she always gave into my begging and would read me, not just one, but multiple other books. Although I think my begging was just an elaborate ruse so I could prolong my bedtime, I think this is where my appreciation and love for reading stems from. At the end of each day, even if fiveyear-old me had a bad day at school or misbehaved at dinner and had my dessert privileges taken away, I knew I would still get to curl up in bed and listen to my mom read me one of my favorite books.

Although I’m in college living hours away from home and I can’t remember the last time my mom read me a book, books are still something we bond over. We basically formed our own two-person book club. A few months ago I recommended that she read “Normal People” (which she hated) and “Where the Crawdads Sing” (which she loved). Whenever I read a book that I enjoy, I tell my mom about it. Plus, she appreciates

the convenience of simply having to take the book from my room rather than go out and buy her own copy.

Whenever my mom finishes a book I recommended, I get texts like: “Finished ‘The Paper Palace.’ What should I read next? Maybe a book from your home collection?” Before I headed back to Fordham after spring break, my mom gave me her copy of “Foster” by Claire Keegan.

Not only do my mom and I give each other book recommendations, but I send her a picture everytime I see one of my favorite childhood books. Whether it’s a copy of “Library Lion” in the dressing room of a store in Manhattan, a tattered copy of “Owl Babies” I spotted at the thrift store or a “Madeline” children’s T-shirt at The Strand. For a brief moment, we can bond over our nostalgia and reminisce about the simpler days when we’d read those books together. It’s funny how the literature I loved as a kid continues to pop up in my everyday life.

Books can really bring people together; they can also strengthen relationships that were already existing to begin with. I’d like to share just a few

other instances when books have brought me closer to my friends and family.

While lounging on the beach this summer, I read “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” My friend’s little sister sat in the beach chair next to me, eyeing me every 30 minutes to see if I’d finished the book yet so it could be her turn. Once I’d finished, I gave her my copy. By the time we left the beach, she was more than halfway through; we talked about the book on our drive home that night.

In my English class this semester, I read “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen for the first time. I knew that my little sister had read it, so, of course, we exchanged our thoughts and opinions on the book over text.

Editorial | Research Resources

Although she thought I was dense because I was shocked by the ending and hadn’t expected it at all, I was just grateful that I found a point of discussion that would get her to respond to my texts.

When my roommate Grace read “Normal People,” I read a good chunk of the book out loud to her. I even created different voices for the characters (even though it sounded pretty ridiculous). Once we’d finished the book, we watched the show together.

Just as reading initially brought my mom and I together, books continue to connect me to the people I love. So if you’re ever feeling down, reread one of your favorite childhood books. Oh, and call your mom.

Fordham’s Research Resources Are Lacking

Research proposals for the annual FCRH Undergraduate Research Symposium were due this past Monday, April 3, and the event will take place later in the month. Even if students are not submitting a proposal for the research symposium, Fordham scholars are utilizing the resources Fordham offers for end-of-semester research papers and projects. With the amount of research currently happening on Fordham’s campus, it is imperative to have resources that can match that demand.

Fordham’s research resources are falling short of this demand for access to a wide range of quality online databases. Students searching Google Scholar will frequently find that a variety of databases are unavailable through their institution. Even if students go searching for a resource through the official Fordham libraries page, they will most likely be relegated to whatever can be found on the most basic databases, such as JSTOR.

Students studying abroad at Fordham’s London Centre also come face-to-face with the realities of poor resources for research. Professors who teach at other American universities in London have access to a wider selection of databases available through their home university to assign research or reading materials that Fordham students do not have access to. Professors will also direct their students to personally register themselves outside institutions, such as the New York Public Library, so they can access

better and more diverse options.

It would be unfair to compare Fordham to large research universities, such as the highlyranked University of Michigan or the UC system. However, looking at similar institutions to Fordham — in tuition and size — it becomes clear that Fordham needs to put more funding toward research resources to be a competitor with their peer institutions.

Overall, Fordham was ranked 72nd generally in relation to other national universities. Other rankings for Fordham include 84th in Best Value Schools and 68th in Most Innovative Schools. One way Fordham could prove more valuable and help students be innovative in what they are producing is increasing the research budget.

One competitor for Fordham is Boston College. Another northeastern Jesuit institution, Boston College is commonly invoked as a similar school to Fordham. Boston College, however, has a wider collection of online database systems for students to choose from, as well as a trial program of other databases they are considering adding to their offerings. Boston College even has more than 35 research centers and institutes for students and faculty to engage with.

Keeping all of this in mind, it comes as no surprise that Boston College is ranked much higher at 36th for National Universities, 50th for Best Value Schools and 16th in Most Innovative Schools. Seeing these offerings directly correspond to higher rankings,

it doesn’t seem like a big ask for more funding for a wider selection of databases to choose from for research projects.

Another private Jesuit institution with a comparable tuition and similar geographic location is Georgetown University. Georgetown is ranked at 22nd for National Universities and 39th in Best Value Schools. Georgetown’s library also contains many more online databases for their students to utilize. Similarly to Boston College, Georgetown also has a database trial system for students to try out a potential new database and offer feedback before the university commits it to their offerings. For more prolonged research, Georgetown also offers several research centers and institutes that span several disciplines for their students to engage with during their time there.

Considering that these universities are commonly compared to Fordham, the resources offered to students should also

be comparable. Students are not asking to increase Fordham’s research centers and institutes to 35, but knowing that the costs and fees are similar at all three of these institutions it is possible to have more online databases available directly through the university without the need to go to an outside source.

As a society so focused on progressing forward or innovating the social sphere, it is imperative to have research resources that meet this ideal. Fordham needs better and more varied research resources to best situate students to be among some of those change makers and innovators that are generating the ideas to move society forward. It does not seem as though that is the path Fordham is setting students along with the university’s current offerings.

If you have any questions, concerns or inquiries, please email therameditorialdirector@ gmail.com

You Should Paws & Reflect on Dog-Breeding Practices

By NICOLE BRAUN OPINION EDITOR

A few weeks ago, the American Kennel Club (AKC) announced that America’s most popular dog breed of the year was the French bulldog, dethroning the labrador, which had held the spot for more than 30 years. Though I am more of a fan of the labrador family, having been the owner of a yellow lab and now two labradoodles, that is not the reason why the AKC’s decision makes me upset. I’m upset because the AKC’s announcement will put more dogs at risk and continue the inhumane cycle of unethical breeding practices.

French bulldogs, also known as Frenchies, have been one of the most popular dog breeds of the last decade; they are the Instagram “it” dog, and influencers across all platforms are eager to share pictures of their own desirable dog. Over the past decade, the breed’s popularity has soared by more than 1,000%. This specific breed is well-known for its adaptability to a city lifestyle: they don’t have much energy to expend so they don’t need a lawn, and they’re small and stout enough to be easily transported on a subway. Of course their flat faces, expressive eyes and roll upon roll of fluffy skin are adorable, too. However, these desirable traits are precisely what are wrong with the breed.

As Tove Danovich writes in Vox, “Frenchies have been marketed as the dog best suited to the lifestyles of the rich and quite possibly lazy.

They don’t even need much exercise, for the simple reason that their numerous health problems can make too much exercise dangerous.” French bulldogs are prone to skin, eye, spinal and respiratory conditions all because of the physical traits that humans so desire. “Some of these health issues can be lessened by careful breeding (versus buying from a high-volume breeder, more commonly known as a puppy mill), but many are a direct result of the appearance people want their Frenchies to have.”

In announcing that the French bulldog was the most popular dog of the year, the AKC neglected to include any of the human-caused downsides of owning the breed, and their announcement will no doubt cause another surge of people to pursue this dog. Other similar publicity, like when a French bulldog won the National Dog Show in 2022, will have a similar effect. The AKC’s decision to promote the French bulldog as the most popular breed with mentioning their human-inflicted health problems will only continue the cycle of hyper demand and poorly-managed, aesthetic-based breeding.

As the breed’s popularity has skyrocketed, among everyone from celebrities to your favorite influencer family, as have breeders whose only desire is a quick turnaround of profit, rather than focusing on producing healthy dogs. Of course, there are quality breeders out there whose sole

concern is acting with the best interest of their dogs in mind. However, “the average price of a quality Frenchie from a reputable breeder is around $5,300.” While everyone who wants a French bulldog might want to source one from a credible breeder, that is just not the financial reality for every consumer. So puppy mills and other large-scale breeders will be working to meet this demand with less regard for the quality and health of the animal they’re producing.

Humans have been playing God when it comes to dog breeding for a long time. Centuries ago, dogs were bred for specific purposes, using selective breeding to produce dogs with traits that would make them better at whatever their purpose was: strength, herding, intelligence, etc. Researchers can trace aesthetic-based breeding techniques back to the mid1800s with the first dog shows, but with the advent of the labradoodle in the 1980s, you can see more modern examples of phenotypic breeding.

Labradoodles were bred to be hypoallergenic animals, not for aesthetic purposes, but Madeline Bernstein, author of “Designer Dogs: An Exposé,” says that once “people realized that if you could breed dogs to be hypoallergenic, you could also breed for big eyes or long ears, or a spotted Frenchie, or a dog so small it could be photographed sitting comfortably inside a teacup.”

Unlike breeding a dog to be better at herding sheep or to be

hypoallergenic, breeding a dog so they can have a shorter snout serves no practical purpose other than to make them look cute, and all it leaves for them is a lifetime of breathing issues. There is no singular trait that causes these health problems, but there is no doubt that they are the result of generations of breeding for aesthetic purposes. I’m not going to pretend to know the intricacies of dog breeding or how specific genes show up where, but if we have the power to make dogs’ snouts shorter for aesthetic reasons, then don’t we also have the power to make them longer so they can breathe? Isn’t there some way for us to reverse the damage we have caused to this line of dogs?

While some can look at bulldogs, both French and English, and pugs

and see them as a feat of humans’ scientific capabilities, we also have to see their health problems and know that we did that to them, too. We as a society have become so obsessed with attaining each new craze that we ignore the ethical implications of our decisions, and this is even more concerning when such decisions impact a living, struggling-to-breath being. French bulldogs are adorable, but we cannot keep promoting them without a care or acknowledgement of the careless ways they were brought into this world.

The Everlasting Value of an English Degree

By AVA PASTORE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

As a current college freshman and journalism major, I am often told the “unfortunate reality” from my peers that there is simply no money in an English degree. Even when my dentist asked what I was studying, I was immediately met with the statement that I will “definitely change my major.” The amount of times I have heard these doubtful proclamations has made me ask myself: Is there still value in an English degree? Although English and history degrees continue to decline as the STEM field persists in its expansion, the merit of an English degree will never fully disappear.

The English degree is constantly bombarded by the claims that the major is simply useless. When contemplating the value of a degree, students typically analyze one factor: How much money will I make?

Pamela Paul, New York Times opinion columnist, states that students may have begun to steer clear of English degrees because of “astronomical debt” and an “uncertain job market.”

Why is this job market seemingly so uncertain? As a society,

we have worked to deface the power and meaning of Englishrelated majors by preaching that jobs in STEM and business fields are much more useful and lead to more success. These practices inevitably neglect the students whose true talents lie in the humanities, and consequently place doubt in the prospect of this degree. I myself have fallen victim to this doubt, often contemplating whether or not I should switch my major.

When I fall into this trap, I remember a few things. First, I am not objectively “good” at science, math, technology or engineering, so I should aim to accomplish something that I am genuinely interested and skilled in.

Second, Paul belives that an English degree can offer many skills that are useful in the working world, such as being “intellectually curious, truthseeking, undaunted by unfamiliar ideas and able to read complex works and distill their meaning in clear prose.” These skills are not homogenous, and are also important for science or technology majors to have;

In fact, Amit Basu, an associate professor of chemistry at Brown University, states how being able to communicate effectively is a crucial part of science.

If these versatile skills are not useless and can be applied to many different fields of study, why does society no longer value them? Although a bitter truth, this is most definitely because of the absence of financial security. If students are continuously told that what they choose to study is a dead end in terms of salary and job opportunities, they will undoubtedly avoid the humanities track. There needs to be a slight disconnect between education and employment. Granted, we should focus on our post-grad goals throughout our college years, but we should also recognize that every major has its own value that is separate from its available job prospects. If everyone thought of their degrees as a pipeline to becoming rich, we would have way too many doctors, engineers and business-people in the world, and not enough intellectual thinkers, authors and educators. Think about the textbooks that we read for our educational courses, the television shows we watch almost everyday and the books we read on the beach — we would not have any of these things without those who chose to study an English-related major. Similarly, why do so many

college students still choose to major in the humanities when society preaches its capitalistic insecurity? In my opinion, the answer to this question lies in the need for a well-rounded education, along with the trust and passion students put into their educational paths. Deborah Fitzgerald, a history of technology professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, affirms that looking at college as a mere job training process poses an “obvious threat to higher education.” In other words, focusing on only one skillset or one subject inherently strips one of a balanced education; college

should be viewed and practiced as a learning experience rather than a prerequisite for employment. With this mindset and an effort to reconstruct the value of skills related to the humanities, the merit of an English-based degree can be re-established. However, if you still have doubts about the use of an Englishrelated degree, I will check back in four years to let you know how it’s going.

Nicole Braun, FCRH ’24, is an English major from Saddle River, N.J.

Ava Pastore, FCRH ’26, is a journalism major from Broomall, Penn.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Breeding French bulldogs for aesthetic qualities is unethical and harmful.

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

An English degree will hold value, despite the major’s decline in popularity.

Why Students Need to Sleep More

By MICHAEL SLUCK PRODUCTION EDITOR

With midterm season having wound down, and finals season just over the horizon, it’s the time of year when a common refrain is being heard across campus: “I got no sleep last night.” It’s an all-toocommon problem at schools across the country, and one that is all too often met with little to no concern. The sleep habits of university students are cause for major worry, however, and it’s necessary for us to have a conversation about how to fix this dangerous problem.

Most studies agree that collegeaged students need to be getting anywhere from seven to nine hours of sleep per night (eight is usually listed as the optimal number). Despite that, studies have found that more than 50% of college students get less than the minimum of seven hours, and 80% of students say sleep loss negatively impacts their academic performance.

The sleep deprivation crisis on college campuses is abysmal, and should be considered one of the central health issues facing young people today. And yet, while a recommendation to sleep well is usually mentioned during orientation, universities are not doing enough to address one of the most dangerous health crises of our age.

If you’re a person who doesn’t get enough sleep who’s reading

this article, you’ll probably be tempted to brush me off. “I’m too busy,” you’ll say. “I’ll catch up on sleep later. I’ve gotten used to it.” Sleep may seem like a luxury for the less busy, or one of those things like going to the gym, that you always mean to get around to, but never can quite fit in. Sleep, however, is one of the most crucial parts of maintaining health, and failing to do so can have lifelong negative consequences.

If you’re sleeping less in order to improve your academic career, then you’re actually doing yourself more harm than good. In the short-term, lack of sleep causes memory issues, making people more likely to forget things. Furthermore, sleep deprivation can lead to decreased performance and alertness, making it harder to stay focused in class. It also makes it more difficult to solve problems, make connections and just learn in general. It can also cause issues with cognition, meaning that staying up all night cramming for an exam the next morning merely ensures that your brain won’t be functioning at its top peak during the test.

You might claim that your body has adjusted to the lack of sleep, and that the aforementioned cognitive decline doesn’t apply to you. Guess what? That’s a consequence of sleep deprivation as well. One study found that people who were

consistently getting less than seven hours of sleep frequently ranked themselves as performing at their normal capacity, even when tests proved that their mental state was continuing to decline.

You might be tempted to just “catch up” on sleep, either by sleeping in on the weekends or during breaks — but that doesn’t really work. According to one study, for every missed hour of sleep, it takes four days of proper sleep to catch up. So while you could compensate for missing sleep every once in a while, catching up doesn’t work on a frequent basis.

Worried about your mental health? Lack of sleep can exacerbate pre-existing mental health issues, including depression and mood swings. It also increases your stress responsivity, meaning you’re more likely to get stressed over problems. People who sleep less tend to be more irritable and less motivated. They are more likely to trigger impulsive behavior, anxiety, paranoia and suicidal thoughts.

And those are just the short-term impacts. More and more research has identified the negative impacts of lack of sleep on long-term health. Sleep deprivation weakens your immune system, leaving you more susceptible to infectious diseases like COVID-19 or the flu. Doctors have discovered that improper sleep habits put people more at risk for obesity, high blood

pressure, heart attack, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease. In one famous study, research examining civil servants in Great Britain showed that individuals who cut their sleep down to below five hours per night doubled their risk of death from all causes.

Fordham has made strides in the past few years to better educate their students about the risks of alcohol and drug consumption. They have taken steps to improve access to mental health services. Sleep deprivation, however, is the next frontier the university needs to tackle. We need to understand what it is about our culture that pressures students to risk both their physical and mental health and wellbeing by sleeping less.

Students need to be more informed about the risks of a sleep-deprived lifestyle, and need to have the resources necessary to fix things.

If you are one of those people who is consistently getting less than seven hours per night, then it’s imperative you at least attempt to make some lifestyle changes to try to get the minimum amount of sleep required. It may seem like an insurmountable challenge, but there may be nothing more important on which you try to improve in your time here at Fordham. Your health is worth the effort.

75 Hard Will Leave You as a Shadow of Yourself

By EDEN COTTONE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

As a young woman in today’s society, I have often felt immense pressure to “slim down” and to lose weight. For years, I would try diets and challenges, such as 75 Hard. And for years, nothing seemed to really impact my weight or how I viewed myself. Maybe there would be slight weight loss here and there, but nothing that greatly impacted my body. I found myself spiraling down a rabbit hole. Diet after diet, intense workout after intense workout, nothing was sticking. Then one day, I looked at myself in a mirror and for the first time, I felt like I truly saw myself. Not just my flaws, but what makes me beautiful as well. When I saw myself, I saw a sad girl who was exhausting herself trying to conform to the “ideal” body type. From that moment on, I promised myself I would change my approach. It was not about my weight but how I felt about myself. A restrictive lifestyle will leave you like a shell of yourself. As I moved forward, I scrapped everything I thought I knew about losing weight and started prioritizing myself. I stopped using my Apple Watch and working out two times a day. I stopped viewing foods as good or bad, but instead as something that keeps me alive. And just when

I let the idea of losing weight slip away and started valuing my life, I started losing weight.

What does that story have to do with the 75 Hard challenge?

This challenge embodies everything that is wrong with diet culture. Starting this challenge is like signing up for the fast pass to restrictive eating habits and a degrading lifestyle.

Diet culture is like a drug, one that seems to consume every single thought. It is not a sustainable way to live. The 75 Hard challenge is just as toxic as a narcotic and is not a healthy way to lose weight.

In a perfect world, this challenge would help people get on the right track, leading them to live a healthier life. That being said, we do not live in a perfect world and this challenge sets us up to fail.

The challenge consists of strict rules: limiting your diet, two difficult 45-minute workouts a day, drinking one gallon of water a day, taking a progress picture and reading 10 pages of a book. There is one rule in particular that encourages a negative relationship with this challenge: There is no room for mistakes. You cannot make any alterations to this challenge and if you mess up, even if it’s a slight misstep, you have to start over entirely.

Another issue that stems from this challenge is the comparison that occurs on social

media. Many share their experience with this challenge on social media, including their body transformation. This encourages the toxic mentality regarding body image and eating habits.

Don’t get me wrong, it is extremely important to live a healthy life. I do my best to exercise every day and eat well. However, going from zero to 100 is not going to make you healthier like the 75 Hard challenge seems to promote. A healthy lifestyle prioritizes balance and listening to your body, it is important to include rest days.

Disordered eating and an unhealthy workout schedule is a dangerous path to go down. Once you start incorporating such unhealthy ideologies into your life, it gets harder and harder to stop. The negatives of this challenge outweigh the positives.

Instead, we should challenge ourselves to live a healthier lifestyle indefinitely. The goal should shift from losing weight to feeling our best. We should not do two exhausting 45minute workouts a day, but rather go for a long walk and do a Pilates workout. The 75 Hard challenge might reflect positively on your body but have a severely negative impact on your mental health.

We must learn to take care of and not restrict ourselves. I believe that the 75 Hard challenge

is toxic. As it rises in popularity, I worry how that might affect the mental wellbeing of many.

Instead of subjecting yourself to this challenge, choose to slowly embrace a healthier lifestyle. Create a habit of walking everyday, eat more vegetables and drink more water. There are so many better ways to go about changing your well-being than this toxic, all-consuming challenge. Our bodies do not deserve to be punished for the insecurities that are seeded in our minds. Embrace what you

have been given and work to better your overall health. Do not fall down that trap, as I once did, it is a waste of a life. Our health is so much more than just a number on a scale. We are so much more than a number on a scale. Our body is our home, and the 75 Hard challenge is a wrecking ball.

The Understated American Water Crisis

By ALEXANDRA RAPP CONTRIBUTING WRITER

America has an embarrassing clean water problem. More than 2.2 million people live without running water and basic plumbing, and another 44 million have inadequate water systems throughout the United States. The American Society for Civil Engineers gives America a “D” grade for water infrastructure and “D-” for wastewater infrastructure in their annual “Infrastructure Report Card.” There are few things more shameful than for the richest country in the world to be a hot topic at the 2023 U.N. Water Conference, especially when considering how the United States situates itself on the world stage. We’re the richest country with one of the most glaring water scarcity gaps, and instead of investing in immediate infrastructure measures to close the gap, we declare a state of emergency, force people to purchase water bottled in other parts of the country and go back to businessas-usual until people stop talking about it and the next crisis emerges in the news cylce .

Unfortunately, it is neither shocking or new that the United States has largely ignored its water crisis. We have a long history of ignoring our crises all together. Everyone remembers when in 2014, Flint, Mich. was plastered across U.S. news because citizens had been drinking lead-filled water from corroded pipes, which were corroded because of toxic chemicals being dumped into the Flint River by America’s own Nestle Corporation. These citizens were then told that the water was

clean (a bold-faced lie) and now, as of 2023, they have had clean water for a whole two months. After nearly a decade of public awareness of the issue. But clearly, a near decade of drinking and bathing in metal-eroding water couldn’t lead to any major health complications, right? And even if it did, America is equipped with the resources to provide for the thousands of people and children who were forced to consume this water to survive. Oh wait, it’s not.

Now that Flint has had clean water for a strong two months, it appears to be Mississippi’s turn to experience an appalling water crisis. Of course this crisis is not new, but it is finally getting some attention from the rest of the country. In 2016, the city of Jackson, Miss. discovered a hole in a city water line and chose to do absolutely nothing about it. In the seven years since, the hole grew, and now roughly 5 million gallons of water gush from it every single day. That’s enough water to meet the needs of 50,000 Jackson residents. For years now, residents of Jackson have endured boil water notices — being forced to boil all drinking, cleaning and bathing water just in order to get through a day. Keep in mind, it costs money to boil water and the city of Jackson’s poverty rate is 104% higher than the U.S. average. Piled on top of that, many residents have experienced periods without access to tap water or having water delivered filled with visible dirt and chemicals.

So what has the state done to help the city? Well, the current Republican legislature ignored any bills that were geared towards fixing Jackson’s crumbling water

infrastructure in favor of focusing on crime in the city. However, at the federal level, the government has committed to sending $600 million toward repairing the city of Jackson’s antiquated water system. Unfortunately, the estimated cost of truly fixing Jackson’s infrastructure is closer to $2 billion. The state has been aware of how their inaction impacts residents, they are not ignorant to the real and present dangers of water scarcity, they just did not care to take action until being held accountable by outside critics.

Now, obviously Jackson’s water scarcity sounds horrific on its own, but when considering the ways water impacts every corner of a person’s life, it becomes clear that inaction is itself a crime. It is especially egregious when you consider that Jackson is over 80% Black, a community that has been systemically oppressed for centuries. For one, education is severely impacted: Schools cannot open when there is no running water in the U.S. because, by law, all schools are required to have potable water. As a result, Jackson students miss invaluable learning time when schools are shuttered by a lack of water access. Without adequate education, America’s great “meritocracy” will overlook these children, thereby limiting their social and economic mobility. Further, people cannot flush toilets, wash clothes, wash hands, clean, cook or bathe when clean water is not readily available — meaning Jackson businesses cannot open and make money. As a result, people cannot work, pay taxes or support their families when U.S. law demands people to have access to potable

water while simultaneously denying hundreds of thousands of people clean water. And instead of fixing it at the source, we punish people for acting desperately when put into desperate situations. The worst part is Flint and Jackson are by no means unique. Impoverished communities across the U.S. experience water scarcity regularly. President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Act is funding $50 billion to improve water access throughout the country, but is this enough? State governments are going to continue to gouge funding from communities in need and abuse funds meant to serve their citizens. Children have grown into adults in the time it seems to take to get their communities barely drinkable tap water, and that human damage is unforgivable. As climate change makes water scarcity a reality in every corner of the world, for rich and poor alike, we need to keep in mind how little we have prepared ourselves by ready-

ing the most vulnerable people. I can’t tell you what the solution is. Even federal initiatives are limited to make meaningful change because so many seem hellbent on depriving people of the funds necessary to make improvements. This country has made basic necessities a luxury and access to needs a way of punishing communities for the crime of being impoverished and not majority white. Grassroots movements are limited when it comes to the country’s crumbling infrastructure, but their work should be appreciated. In the end, it will come down to local governments and their ability to pool and allocate funding. Local governments must begin to seriously consider how important strong infrastructure is to a strong economy if we expect anything to change.

New Child Labor Laws Will Harm Children Nationwide

By EMMA LIPKIND OPINION EDITOR EMERITA

When I was 15 years old, some friends and I got our first jobs in our local pizza shop. We were eager to earn extra cash and get a taste of independence that we didn’t quite merit yet but nevertheless yearned for. In the process of getting a job, though, we discovered that our home state of Pennsylvania required people under the age of 16 to have a worker’s permit for legal employment.

These types of processes vary by state. For example, in the state of Pennsylvania, the permit has to be signed by a parent or guardian, as well as the minor’s school district’s issuing officer. It was fairly simple. Before I knew it, I was taking delivery orders and hoping customers would leave us a tip.

But Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Ark.) claims such a permit is a useless step in the process of hiring a minor. In early March, she signed H.B. 1410, or the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, which rolled back various child labor laws in the state. One of the implications of the bill is that 14 and 15-year-olds no longer need a worker’s permit to legally get a job.

Bureaucratic measures are no

fun for anyone. They can be cumbersome and often feel pointless, but there is typically a reason for them. This is especially true in the case of child labor laws, as all possible measures should be taken to protect the youth from predatory employers and poor working conditions, even if it means dealing with one extra piece of paperwork.

But what is at the core of this desire to “streamline” the employment process for 14 and 15-yearolds? Sanders says it’s a matter of convenience. Proponents of the bill also argue that it will make it easier for minors to support their families, allegedly helping alleviate financial burdens for low-income families. Those against the legislation, such as the group known as Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, say they’re concerned about exploitation. Not to mention the implications for immigrant children and unaccompanied migrants in particular, since they might require immediate employment to support themselves upon entry to the U.S.

I would add that if we’re depending on income streams from teenagers to aid upward class mobility, that’s a clear indication that the country is (and has been) in the midst of a poverty epidemic. If

anything, this and similar legislation is a glaring reminder that, at the institutional level, low-income families often must resort to extreme measures to stay afloat. The situation shouldn’t be so dire that it becomes a child’s responsibility to keep their families fed, clothed and sheltered.

The decision in Arkansas also isn’t an isolated situation. There are nine other states working on passing similar legislation, all culminating into a potentially problematic crisis for employed minors. It’s not a one-party issue, either. There are Democrats and Republicans supporting the effort to decrease protections for employed youth (although it is much more popular amongst Republican members). This is especially dangerous in the context of a 69% increase in illegal employment of minors since 2018, as well as a rise in violations of child labor law standards. In Wisconsin, Packers Sanitation Inc. got in trouble by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division which made the discovery that it had over 100 employees between 13 and 17 years olds working “hazardous occupations and… overnight shifts” across eight states. The Economic Policy Institute reports that the “attempts

to weaken state-level child labor standards are part of a coordinated campaign backed by industry groups intent on eventually diluting federal standards that cover the whole country.”

In this current climate of weakening child labor laws, it is imperative to remain vigilant in the protection of the nation’s youth. The Arkansas bill is doing the complete opposite by offering an easier pathway for employers to exploit low-income children, which is the demographic we should be protecting the most. It seems almost

too self-evident to say, but lawmakers cannot depend on children to bolster the economy through employment. If a simple slip of paper can help even one child avoid bearing this burden and enduring harmful working conditions, then it’s absolutely worthwhile.

Emma Lipkind, FCRH ’23, is a French and international political economy major and journalism minor from Holland, Penn.

New Arkansas law rolled back crucial child labor laws.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Alexandra Rapp, FCRH ’24, is a history and international studies major from Hershey, Pa.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Jackson, Miss. and Flint, Mich. are suffering issues with their drinking.

NYC Neighborhoods | Morris Heights

Morris Heights: A Calmer Hamlet of the Bronx

By CALEB STINE COLUMNIST

The South Bronx is known for being a lively and electric region of New York City that never fails to excite and invigorate its visitors and residents alike.

Highbridge, the last Bronx neighborhood to be featured in this column, captivated me with its authenticity and character, which was uncompromising and welcoming.

Morris Heights, directly north of Highbridge, is bordered by the Cross Bronx Expressway to the south, Burnside Ave. to the north, the Harlem River to the west and Jerome Ave. to the east.

Originally a working-class neighborhood during its development in the late decades of the 19th century, Morris Heights served as the former home of the Gas Engine and Power Company and Charles L. Seabury Company, which operated among the waterfront of the Harlem River, providing the bulk of residents from in and around Morris Heights with their jobs. After the company moved out east to City Island after World War II, the neighborhood, like many others in the surrounding South

Bronx communities, experienced large-scale arson attacks that effectively burned their neighborhood down.

During these burnings, subsidized multi-unit townhouses and recently-constructed apartment buildings were developed throughout the 1970s, with many still standing today. However, during this transformative period in the history of Morris Heights (and the broader South Bronx), cultural changes began to transform as well, as Morris Heights transitioned from an almost exclusively Black neighborhood to an effective biracial one, with Dominican and Puerto Rican residents making up nearly half of the neighborhood by the late 1970s.

As Black residents of the Morris Heights community fought to maintain their racial identity amongst their neighborhood’s demographic transition, hip-hop culture was born. With disc jockeys out of 1520 Sedgwick Ave. being credited as the founders of the now-internationally loved and adored music genre and culture.

Even though hip-hop has reached every corner of the globe and has infiltrated the

headphones of millions, I could almost tell that Morris Heights was responsible for such a phenomenon, as I got off my six-minute D-train ride and walked three blocks west from 1775 Grand Concourse near the 174-175th St. stop.

Confirmation bias was certainly at play. I knew that Morris Heights had given the gift of hip-hop to the world since I first listened to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind.”

But even if I hadn’t learned it in the lyrics to Jay-Z’s iconic song about the city we have the privilege of calling our campus a decade or so ago, there’s something about Morris Heights that wouldn’t have had me surprised to find out what originated on Sedgwick Ave. Morris Heights bleeds character and grit.

While certainly not a dominant ethnicity of the neighborhood, the West African population has made a name for themselves in Morris Heights. At appropriately-named restaurant Accra off of Burnside and Davidson Avenues, African cuisine staples can be more than sampled at modest prices, with eba and fufu being consumed by a reliably diverse

and bustling crowd.

Raices del Valle is the goto for Dominican delicacies, with the chicken soup being the most highly recommended dish at the establishment sitting at the corner of 176th and Jerome Ave.

Similar to Fordham Road, Jerome Ave. serves as an outdoor market of sorts with thrifty deals on produce and clothes.

Morris Heights is my favorite Bronx neighborhood I visited this semester for the first time. Its cultural diversity was expected, but its architectural

diversity was not. The sunset caressing the rooftops of row houses, housing projects and single-family homes, all within the same few blocks, was a sight to see.

From motorcycle brigades racing down Jerome Ave. to boomboxes blasting drill rap featuring at least a handful of talent hailing from within walking distance, the neighborhood wakes you up to a whole new world in a way that has you not wanting to shut your eyes for a long, long time, no matter how tired you may be.

Chase Down New York City’s Cherry Blossoms

By KARI WHITE CULTURE EDITOR

As March draws to a close, so too does the bitter season of winter. Marking the transition from the cold months to the warmer is the sudden rush of flowers blooming in gardens and upon tree boughs all across the region. While New York City, often referred to jokingly as the “concrete jungle,” might not seem like a romantic’s ideal location for spring flowers, the city’s many parks and green spaces provide ample opportunity to delight in the budding color. Most specifically, in the cherry blossoms. An ephemeral marker of the earliest days of spring, the fascination with the pink flowers has seized New York. For those interested in witnessing the flowering trees, multiple parks across the city — such as the New York Botanical

Gardens (NYBG), Central Park and Brooklyn Botanical Garden (BBG) — have created “bloom trackers,” or web pages where potential visitors can follow the development of the cherry blossoms and subsequently plan their trips to see them.

“Cherry Blossom Tracker” for Central Park divides the park into six different sections, adding a drop down pin at each of the different groves within the 843 acres. The six regions include the West Side and the East Side of the Reservoir, the Great Lawn, (the aptly named) Cherry Hill and Pilgrim Hill. The dropdown pins for each of the regions are one of three colors: green, red and burgundy. As the legend explains, the groves that have a green pin are pre-peak and the burgundy are post-peak. The red pins, of which there is currently only one on the map, show peak

bloom. Besides the Great Lawn, which is the one region in peak bloom, every other area of the park is pre-peak. This means that there might be some flowers blooming on the trees, but they have not yet reached their full bloom. While this tracker has a lot of interesting information, especially as it explains the details of the different cherry blossom trees planted throughout the property, it does have a problem. There is no way to gauge when the different regions will reach peak bloom. People interested can research when the different trees bloom, but checking to see what is blooming when is going to be a frustrating process of daily checking.

“Bloom Tracker,” by the NYBG shows a sliding scale of the bloom progress for a variety of different flowering plants. The first item presented is the progression for cherry blossoms, further proving the pull that these flowering trees have on NYC culture. At the moment, it says that the trees are only 10% of the way to peak bloom. Again, this does not explicitly mention when they assume peak bloom to be, but does offer a clearer idea of how near we are to the cherry blossoms’ peak bloom. This map also neglects to mention where in the park the blooming cherry blossoms are, which makes finding the plants in bloom more difficult.

Lastly, “Cherrywatch,” by the BBG, has a very detailed map that shows the location and progression of individual cherry blossom trees throughout their

park. The icons, as explained by the legend, show the stages of prebloom, first bloom, peak bloom and post-peak bloom. This is much more descriptive than Central Park’s tracker, and incorporates a sense of progression similar to the NYBG. All in all, this tracker has the most information for the avid cherry blossom viewers.

Cherry blossoms, or “sakura” in Japanese, are a special type of flowering tree, which have large flowers that range in color from soft white to a deep pink. Most of the species that appear in New York City originated in Japan, where they were either discovered naturally or were bred over time for larger flowers and other genetically favorable traits. These latter trees are called “cultivars,” and some types are as old as the eighth century. They typically bloom in mid-April, but because of this past record-breaking, warm winter, most trees started blooming in late March. That being said, not all species of cherry blossoms bloom at the same time. This makes planning out when to go see them particularly annoying, which has sparked the trend of creating “bloom trackers” for various parks.

The fascination with cherry blossoms began in Japan’s Heian Period, which ranged from 794 CE to 1185 CE. Referred to as “sakura” in Japan, the practice of both admiring and cultivating cherry blossoms has continued through the centuries. Artwork from that period onwards illustrates men and women lounging on blankets and cushions,

drinking tea as they bask in the beauty of the cherry blossoms. This trend disseminated into Europe and the United States during the 19th century, following the end of Japan’s closed border policy. Western fascination with Japan sparked trends like “japonisme,” which fundamentally affected the direction of the West’s visual culture. As a result of Japanese material goods, culture and even people traveling to different parts of the Western world, interest arose in the importation of their cherry blossom trees. Through the joint efforts of Mrs. Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, Dr. David Fairchild, the First Lady Helen Taft and, perhaps most importantly, Yukio Ozaki (Tokyo’s mayor at the time), cherry trees were first planted alongside the Potomac in Washington D.C. It wasn’t long afterwards that love for the delicate, pink blossoms spread throughout the country, and soft, pink petals carpeted New York City streets.

Give in to the cherry blossom mania and visit one of the three parks listed in this article, or the various other locations where pink flowers bloom on tree branches throughout the city. In Japanese art and literature, the cherry blossoms often symbolize the ephemeral nature of beauty — how it exists for a few short moments before fading away. While a bit macabre, it’s a worthwhile statement to consider. The cherry blossoms last only for a few short weeks, so start checking the blossom trackers and get your cameras ready.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Morris Heights somehow both soothes and energizes its visitors.

Who’s That Kid? | Jordan Gomes, FCRH ’25

Sophomore Advocates For A Safer Tomorrow

By SAMANTHA MINEAR FEATURE DIRECTOR

On Dec. 12, 2012, Jordan Gomes, FCRH ’25, was thrust into adulthood at a young age when she became a survivor of the Sandy Hook shooting, an act of gun violence which claimed the lives of 26 students and staff between the ages of six and 56.

The shooting caused a ripple effect across the world, provoking calls for the ban of assault weapons. It was the deadliest shooting in the United States at the time and remains the deadliest shooting at an elementary school.

Gomes became a gun violence prevention advocate in 2017; she now works for Newtown Action Alliance, a grassroots organization that started in her own hometown.

“Gun violence was an issue that struck my community very violently, and thus I became involved in the movement as a way to heal,” said Gomes. She frequently travels to Washington, D.C. to speak to legislators about the importance of preventing gun violence and advocates for the development of public policy

that is both trauma-informed and “addresses the root causes of the violence itself,” said Gomes.

In 2023, there have already been 130 mass shootings. This has inspired thousands of students across the United States to advocate for gun violence prevention through various policy changes.

“Time and time again we see that many causes of gun violence can be traced back to systemic issues such as poor mental health access, discrimination and unsafe cultures surrounding guns – issues that are often prevalent in these communities and homes before the shootings take place,” said Gomes.

The rash of shootings has also highlighted how desperately the United States needs change. Gomes is “incredibly passionate” about the cause, believing more than anything else that “solutions exist.”

“The first step towards change is when something inside of you tells you ‘this isn’t right,’” said Gomes. “That’s the thing that sparks all movements.”

Gomes has been featured in the Washington Post, mostly recently on the 10-year anniversary of the shooting alongside other survivors, where

she spoke about her experience during the shooting and how her time at Fordham has changed her perspective on the experience. The continued prevalence of school shootings, namely the Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Uvalde shootings have continued to reopen the same scarred wound, as well as reigniting political tensions across the country.

Additionally, she has been featured in Teen Vogue and on CNN featuring Anderson Cooper. With the platform she has developed, Gomes uses her power for good to raise awareness, encourage advocacy and speak on the issues that destroyed her hometown community 10 years ago.

“Every morning I wake up and for a moment I know peace – existence without the fear and heartache that has been wrought by violence. I strive for that above all else,” said Gomes. “For myself, for community – for all of us, as a collective people.”

As time goes on, the memory of what happened remains, but Gomes has managed to turn it into something beautiful in her efforts to spark change. Until students no longer live in fear

of going to school, Gomes and the organizations she works with as well as her fellow advocates will continue to petition lawmakers at the state, federal

and local level to make a concerted effort against gun violence so that, one day, no one has to experience a school shooting – or any shooting – ever again.

“Death is Not the End” At the Rubin Museum

By CLARE HANNON CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I have spent my last three years at Fordham studying history and medieval art. Not a lot about Tibetan Buddhism comes up in that field, so my recent trip to the Rubin Museum in Chelsea was a completely new experience. The museum itself is hidden and a little out of the way. I found the unassuming museum on 17th St., away from the horns and traffic of 7th Ave. and beyond some scaffolding. The Rubin Museum was founded in 2004 by Donald and Shelley Rubin, a husband-wife team. Though not as large as the Metropolitan Museum of Art or as old as the Morgan Library, the Rubin is arguably one of NYC’s most

important cultural institutions, with one of the world’s largest collections of Buddhist art. The Rubin Museum reaches across current geo-political borders and shows Buddhist art from the Himalayan region, instead of any one country. Along with the artifacts permanently in the collection, the curators of the Rubin Museum work hard to make sure that the rotating exhibits are interesting and relevant. I bought my $14 student ticket online, and the attendant at the front desk printed one out for me when I got there. I walked into the museum proper and took the elevator straight to the sixth floor, where the exhibit in question is located.

When you walk into the “Death is Not the End” exhibit,

you are greeted by ethereal white fabric hanging from the ceiling and along the stair handrails. Hanging within one of the opaque curtains of fabric is an illuminated sign with the title of the exhibit stylized in all lowercase. Winding around custom-layout lilac walls, a combination of Buddhist and Christian art is on display. Despite its initial appearance as a heavenly escape to macabre art, the exhibit itself is difficult to navigate and there is no particular order in which you are supposed to view the artifacts. I took the elevator up, and was blocked off from the initial wall text and explanatory artworks, since they were at the top of the stairs. Though the artworks are organized under thematic wall texts, there is

a distinct lack of order and sequence that makes the exhibit unapproachable and confusing, especially to someone who is already unfamiliar with Buddhist art such as this.

The exhibit does not shy away from the taboo, the macabre or the down-right alarming. Many of the Tibetan religious artifacts are carved from human bone, and the existence of skeletons or depictions of hell in almost all of the artworks on the wall is enough to give you the shivers. But I believe that this is the exact reaction that the curators are looking for. Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist art is juxtaposed with medieval Christian art in this exhibit on death and the afterlife. The introductory wall text of the exhibit charges Western viewers to consider how they think about religion and death. Even though the introduction wall text calls into question the West’s relationship with Buddhist beliefs, it also calls attention to the similarities between Buddhist and Christian belief systems and thoughts on the afterlife. While thinking about the juxtaposition of Buddhist and Christian beliefs is incredibly interesting, the purpose of integrating Christian artworks draws away from the importance of the Rubin Museum’s mission, which is to help make Buddhist and Asian art accessible to people in the United States.

My favorite piece that I saw at

the exhibition was humble and easy to miss. Along the slightly hidden last wall you walk past as you exit the exhibit, a small, square, wooden carving is propped up in a display case. It is a traveling shrine to the Buddha Vairochana from the ninth century. The carving is interesting because of the context of where it was found and its materials shed light on the vast trade networks that connected Asia at the time. I liked the piece because the intricate artistry and modest elegance of the woodcarving really touched me, especially when you compare it to the grand, eye-catching and colorful pieces in the rest of the exhibit. This traveling shrine is intensely personal, and humanizes a religion with which I was unfamiliar before coming to this exhibit.

Despite my reservations about the navigability of the exhibit and the accessibility of the artifacts, “Death is Not the End” is definitely worth the visit. The museum is easy to get to on the 1 train from Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, it’s open from Thursday to Sunday and the Chelsea neighborhood is teeming with great spots for a bite to eat after you explore this mecca of Asian art. The exhibit is intimate and unique when compared to other museums in Manhattan.

A visit to the Rubin Museum, and a trip to the sixth floor exhibit, are a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

COURTESY OF SAM MINEAR / THE FORDHAM RAM Gomes, who survived the Sandy Hook shooting, fights for gun reform..

The Rubin Museum, famous for its collection of Buddhist art, opens a new exhibit exploring the afterlife.

The Dawn of An Icon: Tamino’s “Sahar”

By LAUREN LOMBARDI ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

After a two-year sabbatical from the outside world, last year Belgian-Egyptian singersongwriter Tamino returned to Instagram on a beautiful winter day to throw a bone to his listeners with an artistic-as-ever photo of himself playing the guitar on the floor, the lighting just right. Months later, on Sept. 23, came the arrival of his sophomore album “Sahar.”

Tamino first broke onto the scene a few years ago, giving audiences a taste of his storytelling ways with his first album “Amir.” What drew me in about Tamino was his poignant ever-specific style of writing. I can confidently say that there is not a single songwriter nowadays who is able to cough up words as beautifully as he does. He shows this off in his latest release by reminiscing about himself louder than ever, and it would be a shame to choose not to listen.

In the second single off his new album, “Fascination,” Tamino recalls an instance of dissimilarity he noticed between him and his girlfriend: their reactions to a documentary about flamingos. He relates the situation to an overall difference in their demeanors, as he powerfully sings “I lack

the colors reflected in your eyes when you look up to the sky, to me they don’t seem to appear.” The triviality of the story behind “Fascination” does not equate to a silly tune. His thoughtful lyrics about simple observations and the ’90s-sounding alternative rock sound accumulates to a track that is as contemplative as it is downright enjoyable, and the last 30 seconds of vocal runs let Tamino assert himself before digging into the rest of the vocally filled album.

While he does not receive the acclaim he should, especially in the United States, Tamino’s talent isn’t going unrecognized by his fellow artists. Colin Greenwood, bassist of Radiohead, joined Tamino’s live and studio band after the musician saw Tamino in concert a few years back. It’s telling of how well he’s performing the genre that Greenwood decided to permanently join his backing band, since many have compared Tamino’s soft rock sound to Radiohead. Another Belgian singer, Angèle, is featured on “Sunflower,” undisputedly the most whimsical song on “Sahar” and perfectly suited for the soft voice of the international pop singer.

“Sunflower” is as expertly communicated as any of the countless yearning-filled Tamino

songs, but what sets this one apart is how in tune the imagery of the lyrics are with the production of the song. It begins with twinkling noises fused with the light sound of waves crashing; fitting when the unnamed “her” is described as a “golden-haired girl singing by the ocean.” The gentle tone of “Sunflower,” along with the perfect blending of Angèle and Tamino’s voices, charms listeners through the nth desperate “oh baby, don’t you notice me?”

Recently, Tamino released a music video for the song reminiscent of “The Truman Show,” which depicts him as a lost boy looking for his love who resides in space, with a wardrobe more princely and production design dreamier than anything Jim Carrey was trapped in. The video is directed by Ramy Moharam Fouad, Tamino’s younger brother, who heads all of his videos. Fouad’s precision and sharpness is as stark as the moon shining over his brother; it is evident their family ties are not what gets Fouad the directing jobs, but their shared vision and sensitivities.

out group of songs together with a voice that could kill, tap into “Sahar.” It’s well worth the listen. And when you’re as captured as the rest of us, Tamino will be performing at the new venue Racket NYC on April 21 and April 22. He puts on a simplistically spectacular show,

and if you wait around the venue for about 45 minutes, you may just get to tell him as much. Or, like me, you could let it slip that you think he’s a “f*****g genius.” It’s hard to keep words in when talking to someone who lets them fall out so easily.

Though Tamino returns to his favorite lyrical themes on “Sahar,” he offers new angles on his romantic anguish, giving a look past his cool and collected surface. If you’re looking for a beautifully thought Tamino ushers in a new era with his sophomore album, “Sahar.”

NYBG’s Holds Its Breath As The “Corpse Flower” Blooms

By CLAIRE KRIEGER DIGITAL PRODUCER

Spring has sprung for the 2023 season at the New York Botanical Gardens (NYBG) just across the street from Fordham University. While it is common knowledge that any Fordham student can gain free access to the Botanical Garden, the newest edition in the greenhouse has not gained much traction. The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is home to the NYBG’s only Amorphophallus Titanum which is currently preparing to bloom.

The Amorphophallus Titanum also goes by the names Titanarum or, the more gruesome of the three names, the “corpse flower.” This plant is traditionally native to Sumatra, an island in Indonesia. It contains a flesh-like spike in the center of the plant, the spadix, housed in a large red leaf with smaller flowers curling around the spadix sprouting out of the leaves. The plant also produces fruit once it reaches the necessary level of maturity. This increases chances of the plant reproducing when birds eat the fruit and scatter the remains in soil. The corpse flower’s gargantuan structure is the largest bloom in the entirety of the plantae kingdom.

Another interesting fact about this flower relates to the title of “corpse flower.” The common name is inspired by the smell,

or rather stench, that emerges when the flower blooms. It is said to have a similar odor as rotting flesh. However, the plant emits this smell in an effort to attract pollinators that tend to have a more carnivorous diet. The petals also mimic that of a dead animal and take on a meaty red hue.

The titan-arum first debuted in the Botanical Gardens nearly a century ago in 1932. It was the first one to take residence in the Western Hemisphere and caused much excitement when the first bud appeared on the flower in 1937. It finally bloomed its first flower on June 8, 1937, causing the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory to be overrun with plant-lovers, reporters and excited citizens all hoping to see the special plant. The spadix that bloomed in 1937 is the longest to this day, measuring out to be around eight feet.

After the flowering of a second plant in 1939, the corpse flower received a special title.

The President of the Bronx Borough decided to name the Amorphophallus Titanum the official flower of the Bronx. Sadly, this title was revoked in 2006 when they decided to name the daylily the borough’s official flower.

The excitement surrounding this particular plant might seem strange seeing how the flower itself smells of rotting

flesh. A reason why the NYBG is so excited at the impending blooming of the flower is its rarity. This plant follows a highly unpredictable flowering pattern that makes the few times it buds so special. On average, the Titan-arum takes about seven or more years to muster enough energy to properly bloom. Also, mimicking the weather conditions of the Sumatra can be a difficult task. If the humidity or temperature is too high or low, it is not sufficient conditions for the corpse flower to plant. The flower contains an underground storage organ called the “corm.” The plant will not begin the process of blooming until the corm weighs at least 35 pounds. However, it can build up to weigh over 110 pounds, making it difficult to transport and house. So many moving factors contributing to a successful plant makes the blooming all the more exciting.

The Titan-arum is also currently an endangered plant. The U.S. Botanical Garden estimates that there is only about 1,000 Amorphophallus Titanum left in the wild currently. There are a handful of corpse flowers growing in conservatories across America, but it is not a common plant to find. Only professional botanists are attempting to cultivate this plant due to the Titan-arum naturally disappearing from its home.

This is due to the natural environment it grows in being destroyed for oil plantations or logging. The fact this plant can grow so far away from its home is no small feat. Therefore, the NYBG recognizes the importance of preserving the plant.

The Amorphophallus Titanum is a very special facet of the

garden’s conservatory. It is there for all to go and attempt to catch a glimpse, or sniff, of it blooming. If you do not have the time to walk over, there is a free live stream of the corpse flower on the NYBG’s website. However, seeing this plant bloom could be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I highly recommend making the trek to see it in person.

The NYBG awaits the rare blooming of its Sumatran “corpse flower.”

There’s No Rat in This Ratatouille

By KARI WHITE CULTURE EDITOR

Made famous by Pixar’s 2007 film, ratatouille is a hearty, vegan dish that will warm your soul as much as your stomach. Consisting of eggplants, zucchini, onions, tomatoes and a whole lot of garlic, this dish can be eaten as a side in a much bigger meal or as the main dish itself. Out of all the recipes that this column has explored so far, this will be the most time and equipment intensive. While recipes for the dish vary, the one that I am using is from All Recipes and is based off of the dish that Remy the rat makes in “Ratatouille.”

Compared to other versions I browsed, this recipe shortens the amount of prep time needed. It does, however, require a lot of patience and arm strength, at least if you want to have the effect Remy makes at the end.

Originating in Provence in the 18th century, it began as a farmer’s end-of-summer stew. Even the name alludes to its bucolic origin: “rata” means stew with whole pieces, while “touiller” refers to the act of mixing pieces together. (Although Linguine in “Ratatouille” is right, the name does sound like “rat” and “patootie.” Not delicious.) It’s not a very fancy dish. However, the vegetables mix and meld together in a wonderfully savory, velvety way, and the colors of the different vegetables are just as appetizing for the eye as the taste is for the tongue.

Without further ado, let’s get into the recipe.

Again, we must begin in the grocery store. The ingredients list is as follows: six ounces of tomato paste, one eggplant, one zucchini, one yellow squash, one red bell pepper, one yellow bell pepper, half an onion and a whole bulb of garlic. In addition to these, olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme are used to add extra flavor to this dish. Fortunately, my roommates offered me a quarter onion, a small shallot and thyme, saving me from purchasing those ingredients. We also already had olive oil, salt and pepper, as those are some of our pantry staples. Still, I had to buy most of the vegetables and refresh

our stock of garlic. On top of that, I added a loaf of bread. All in all, by the end of my Modern Market shopping trip, I had spent $15. While this isn’t cheap considering how little I purchased, the recipe makes enough for four servings. Had I made this with friends for one of our roommate dinners, it would have ended up costing $3.75 per person, which I consider pretty cheap. The real cost of this dish came with the prep work. There was a lot of chopping vegetables. While the recipe says that prep time will take only around 45 minutes, it ended up being nearer to an hour for me.

First, you have to slice the squash, zucchini, eggplant and bell peppers. Then, you have to chop up the onion and mince the garlic. Once all of the chopping is down, then you have to mix the onion, garlic and tomato paste together in whatever baking dish you are using. Once you do that, and season it with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, you have to begin laying down the sliced vegetables. While I didn’t stick as closely to a pattern as I could have, I did try to arrange them in attractive lines. It took a hot minute to complete.

Once those three steps are down, however, it’s easy. All you

have to do is sprinkle olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme over the top, then slip it into the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes. I covered my dish with parchment paper, as the recipe suggested, to keep the vegetables from burning on the top. It seemed to work, so I would suggest doing the same. The ratatouille was so good. So good. My roommates, who watched as I spent a few minutes taking painstaking photos of the dish, thought it was so good that they gave me permission to quote them in this article.

Here are their quotes: “I think it’s so delicious,” from Madeline Ryan, FCRH ’24; “10/10,” said Anna Nguyen, FCRH ’24; and, my favorite, “This is actually really good,” from Isabel Danzis, FCRH ’24. All of these coupled with my mom’s text of “Beautiful!” cemented this as a go-to dinner recipe. It’s not super filling, so I would recommend it as a side or paired with rice. However, it’s fairly cheap, vegan and absolutely delicious.

While you may not travel through space and time to a particularly heart-warming memory from your childhood as the food critic, Anton Ego, does in the film, this dish will certainly stay with you long after you make it. (Unless you share it with your roommates, and they eat all of your leftovers.) Due to the vast array of kitchen utensils that you need for this recipe, and the necessity of the oven, I rate this recipe as…

Difficulty level: Campbell Hall.

Dissecting Miley Cyrus’s “Endless Summer Vacation”

By ALAINA STANISCI CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On March 10, Miley Cyrus released her eighth studio album, “Endless Summer Vacation,” a mature, pop-rock collection of passionately curated songs featuring iconic collaborators Brandi Carlile and Sia. Immediately following the album’s release, adoring fans celebrated and circulated the album’s top songs via social media. Aside from my childhood obsession with “Hannah Montana,” I would not consider myself an avid Miley Cyrus fan. However, the immense popularity of the new song “Flowers,” which seemingly appeared every time I opened up my TikTok feed, garnered my attention to listen to the entire album. Since listening to the album, I have discovered a newfound appreciation for Cyrus and her craft for intertwining creative, emotionally charged messages within her music to create influential and impactful art.

The album’s sequencing is intriguing and engaging for the listener as there is a wide variety of both fast-paced and slow songs, which all correspond with the emotional messages threaded throughout the album. In curating the album, Cyrus decided to split the album into two sections: day

and night. Whereas the day portion of the album aligns with the energetic, fast-rhythm songs, the night portion of the album corresponds with slower-paced, tranquil songs that tug at the listener’s heartstrings. By sequencing the album in this creative way, Cyrus crafted an emotionally powerful piece that encompasses all of the emotions that an individual experiences in a typical day.

Cyrus starts the day portion of the album with the most popular song, “Flowers,” a zestful song with a catchy chorus. Cyrus released the lead single on Jan. 13 and “Flowers” topped the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for six weeks. Although Cyrus has not publicly admitted that any of her songs are addressed toward her ex-husband Liam Hemsworth, many lyrics throughout the album are centered around the idea of breaking up, moving on and reclaiming yourself. Notably, Cyrus released “Flowers” on Hemsworth’s birthday.

Cyrus’s work has progressed throughout the years, and each album she releases becomes more mature as she has made it a long way since her career started as a Disney star. This album is no exception. In crafting this album, Cyrus successfully incorporates meaningful, deep, heavy lyrics that tell a unique story. Regarding

the breakup concept, the “Hannah Montana” alum highlights the importance of moving on rather than focusing on a failed relationship. Evidently, the idea of self-love is intertwined throughout many lyrics, such as “I can buy myself flowers” and “I can hold my own hand” from the single. While most of the album is centered around self-love and getting over a breakup, the artist also touches on other heavy topics. The fourth track of the album, “A

Thousand Miles,” features Carlile as a song about sisterhood. After one of Cyrus’ closest friends lost her sister to suicide, Cyrus was inspired to write a song conveying the happiness and joy that her sister brings into her life. In this instance, Cyrus was able to take suicide, a dire issue in today’s society, and connect it with the joy that comes from her own relationship with her sister.

Throughout the album, Cyrus effectively showcases her talent

for deriving inspiration from her own personal experiences and turning these experiences into empowering storytelling. The album encompasses a wide range of genuine human emotions to create well-balanced, sophisticated art that everyone can relate to.

After listening to all of “Endless Summer Vacation” and experiencing the depth, authenticity and sheer inspiration that went into this album, I look forward to what Cyrus will create next.

Miley Cyrus’ eighth studio album, which released this past March, showcases her musical progression.

COURTESY OF KARI WHITE/THE FORDHAM RAM

Made famous by the Pixar film of the same name, ratatouille is a hearty vegan dish that will not disappoint.

Keating Steps to Fordham Prep: Performance Groups Wow

By LAUREN LOMBARDI ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

On March 28, United Student Government (USG) hosted their annual Keating Steps event to highlight the talented performing groups at Fordham University. The event typically takes place in the first semester of the school year on Keating Hall’s steps, but due to unfavorable weather conditions Keating Steps was pushed to March 28, then moved to Fordham Preparatory School’s Leonard Theatre just prior to the event. As much as I enjoyed the event regardless of its location, relaxing on Eddie’s while watching the Satin Dolls, Sláinte, Jetés, b-Sides, Ramblers and Hot Notes would have been lovely. Plenty of students attended the event though, whether that was to enjoy good music and dance, support their friends or get a free shirt that was given to the first 50 students in attendance of the event.

Vice President of Student Life of USG Brian Inguanti, FCRH ’24, introduced the Satin Dolls as the opening group. Fordham’s all-female and femme a cappella group began their set with an introduction of “The Best Part”

By KARI WHITE CULTURE EDITOR

From March 30 to April 2, the Mimes and Mummers performed “The Laramie Project,” a 2001 play written by Moisés Kaufman in the aftermath of the Laramie murder that shook America. Set in front of the curtain, on the apron of the stage and the floor right before it, the cast of nine transformed into a multitude of people, all residents of Laramie, Wyo. They moved from chair to chair, always moving around a buck fence, putting on different costume pieces that distinguished each of their characters. The stripped back production focused their audience’s attention on their performances — on the expression of their faces, and the tones with which they spoke. Through them, audiences could see the people of Laramie and connect with all the nuanced ways that the residents made sense of their town’s horribly shocking tragedy.

Before you read further, be warned that this is a brutal story. It includes intense violence against someone on the basis of their sexuality. While this article shall avoid the more gruesome details, there will be references to the violence that inspired the play. With that warning, let us discuss the Mimes and Mummers show.

In 1998, a 21-year-old man, Matthew Shepard, was kidnapped, robbed, beaten within an inch of his life and left for dead in the middle of the Wyoming prairie. He spent 18 hours tied to a fence,

by Meghan

Trainor, a fitting start to a night of performances as the lyrics preach “the best part of being a singer at all is singing to the world my songs.” The Dolls then transitioned into a duet of “Mood Ring” by Lorde and a solo of SZA’s “Kill Bill.” Both songs had a breezy feel to them which made the Dolls’ overall performance seem effortless.

The second group to perform was Sláinte, Fordham’s Irish dance team. Sláinte’s first number was more traditional, beginning with the team split in two groups occupying space on the stage at different times. Towards the end of the number, the two groups came together and marched powerfully towards the end of the song.

Sláinte changed the course of their not-so-traditional performance as they danced to Jackson 5’s “Blame It on the Boogie.” The number was not only fun for the audience, who jumped in to clap along to the beat, but for the team who was all smiles during their steps and glides.

Sláinte’s performance was followed by Executive President of USG Santiago Vidal, FCRH ’24, who gave a briefing on the possibilities of increasing student activity fees. Vidal stated the increase would not only bring

more events for students to enjoy, but they will be of better quality. Additionally, he says the funds will help to “put clubs on a national stage” and earnestly asks that students vote “yes” on the fee increase.

Up next was Fordham’s ballet club, The Jetés. They performed a total of five dances. Notably, The Jetés included a preview of two numbers from their upcoming performance of “Peter Pan,” which will take place on April 22 and 23. Annabel Graham, FCRH ’26, performed “Crocodile” in a striking bright green morph-like suit, both the costume and her impressive spins eliciting loud applause from the large audience. Another fun and notable “Peter Pan” number was “Peter and His Shadow,” with Peter being played by Noel Bernard, FCRH ’24, and his shadow by Peter Wolff, FCRH ’23, respectively.

The b-Sides, Fordham’s co-ed a cappella group, opened with a solo rendition of “Lost In Japan” by Shawn Mendes, performed by Sam Feinstein, FCRH ’25. They continued into a solo of Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart,” where the talky chorus “I would’ve stayed at home,” gave way to a lot of fun, sporadic inclusions by the rest of the b-Sides while they

sang behind the soloist, though they gave her space to get some great vocal runs in.

Fordham’s only all-male a cappella group, the Ramblers, opened with a solo performance of Young the Giant’s “Otherside,” a song I had never heard before but thoroughly enjoyed. They followed it up with “Your Song,” which is a wonderful a cappella choice. I never imagined beatboxing to Elton John, but it worked well.

Lastly, the jazz fusion a cappella group, the Hot Notes, began with an introduction of “Hit Me With A Hot Note And Watch Me Bounce” by Duke Ellington, a very short but sweet group

performance and an ode to their namesake. Though my favorite performance of the entire night was the soulful sendoff of “Cowboy Casanova” by Carrie Underwood. Despite all of its unfortunate cancellations and postponements, Keating Steps was a success. It was a treat to see Fordham’s several performance based clubs come together and put on an exceptional show. Lucky for us, all of the participating groups will be hosting their own concerts or showcases throughout the spring semester, so we won’t have to patiently wait for next year’s Keating Steps in order to see them entertain again.

The Mimes and Mummers Perform “The Laramie Project”

enduring freezing temperatures, before he was discovered. Although Shepard was rushed to a hospital immediately, he had slipped into a coma from which he never woke up. A few days later, he died. Described by the BBC as “The Murder that Changed America,” Shepard’s story incited outrage, protest and ended in the creation of the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” a federal law against hate crimes directed at the LGBTQ+ community.

Rather than dramatizing the gruesome story of Shephard’s death, Kaufman’s play explores the shockwaves that continued to ripple through the small town of Laramie, long after the gruesome murder had occurred and the presence of the media died down. He led a team of 10 writers from his New York City theater company, Tectonic Theater Project, to interview the residents. They wove together their 200 interviews and other material, such as courtroom transcripts, to create a piece of theater that explored the small town, its people and the foundational bigotry that enabled such a horrific event to take place.

This is an unfortunately timely performance, as the passage of laws like Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law betray a growing trend of conservative lawmakers suppressing queer rights. As Jacob Demlow, the show’s director, wrote in his director’s note at the beginning of the program, “In an ideal situation this show would have

become dated, however it’s odd that as we reach the 25th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death it feels just as relevant as it did when it first premiered in May of 2000.”

Demlow’s directing expressed this solemn tone, as the sparsely decorated stage, few props and little movement allowed the actor’s words to soak into the audience. The main movement that happened on the stage were the actors moving from one chair to the next, which they sat in when they were not directly addressing the audience or one of the other actors. These chairs all looked as if they had come out of an old, western home, as they were each made of wood and had beautiful detailing. At times, a handful of chairs would be brought together to form a bar, table or other set-up. In this way, then, the chairs also became characters in their own right.

And, again, looming behind the actors throughout the entire play was the buck fence, upon which Shepard had been tied for 18 hours after being beaten. Similar to the chairs, it had a certain livelihood as it cast a shadow on stage.The actors interacted with the fence a few times, as their characters returned to the site of the gruesome attack. They did this only in small groups, however. It was not until the end of the play, when each of the actors gathered around the buck fence to reflect on Shepard’s life and the hope they had for the future, that they all came together and leaned on it.

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM

Several Fordham performance groups showcased their talents this past week.

Track and Field Finishes in Top 15 at Colonial Relays

By LOU ORLANDO ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

In a pool of 34 teams, Fordham Track and Field landed in the top half in both the men’s and women’s competitions at the Colonial Relays in Williamsburg, Va. With a valiant effort over the two-day event, the men tied for 14th while the women took 15th in the weekend’s festivities.

The Rams were unable to net an event win on the opening day, but secured a handful of top five finishes and numerous notable showings in a stacked competition. Sophomore Caroline McDonagh was the top performer on the women’s side, taking fourth in the 10,000-meter invitational run. Their other top-five finish came in the field events, as graduate student Kathryn Kelly ranked fourth in the long jump. Junior Skylar Harris and freshman Leah Ruvo finished seventh and ninth respectively, making it the only event where three Rams finished in the top 10.

Other notable performances included senior Alexandra Thomas falling just outside of the top 10, taking 11th right in front of senior Taylor Mascetta and junior Marin Bogulski, who took 14th and 16th. Graduate student Casey Metzler placed 13th in the hammer throw invitational while Kelly added to her top-five finish in the long jump with a 15th place finish in the 100-meter dash.

The men had two fifth-place finishes on their side of things. The Rams took fourth place in the 10,000-meter run on both sides as junior Steven Zucca earned the highest finish for the Rams in the men’s competition. Freshman Ben Borchers added a fifth-place finish in the 1,500-meter event, with sophomore Nathan Bezuneh coming in at 15th. Other notables included senior Colin Flood with a 12th-place finish in the 1,500-meter

Champions League Quarterfinal Preview

By MICHAEL HERNANDEZ ASST. SPORTS EDITOR EMEIRITUS

invitational and freshman George Pomer with a 25th-place finish in the 400-meter hurdles.

The Rams got day two started with a pair of event wins, one from each competition. Both wins came in the 10,000-meter run, as seniors Nathania Tan and Ryan Fahey both took first place in their respective events, with freshman Nicholas Grabarz posting a fifth place finish as well.

Fordham posted a number of top ten finishes as well. Graduate student Zalen Nelson ranked fifth in the men’s 800-meter invitational, while graduate student Helen Connolly and senior Mary Kathryn Underwood took seventh and eighth in the women’s invitational. In the field events, junior Justin Rhee finished fourth in the men’s triple jump with Ruvo taking eighth in the women’s triple jump. Graduate student Jana Rokitta tied for second in the high jump invitational, while Ruvo added one last top five finish for her weekend, tying for second in the regular high jump event.

In the relays, Nelson joined senior Erik Brown and freshmen Matthew Nurse and Yariv Simhony for a fourth place finish in the 4x400 relay. The distance medley unit of Borchers, Flood, Bezuneh and sophomore Isaiah James also earned a top five finish, taking fifth. On the women’s side, Mascetta, Thomas, Bogulski and sophomore Caitrina Barton were ninth in the 4x1500.

The Rams will stay local this upcoming weekend, participating in the Metropolitan Championship at Icahn Stadium on Saturday.

Fordham took third place in both men’s and women’s during the indoor Metropolitan Championship earlier this winter, and they’ll look to post another impressive outing in the spring.

Athletes of the Week

Wells had a tremendous weekend for the Rams as they took on George Mason University for a doubleheader. In game one, Wells went four for six at the plate with two home runs and five RBIs, with her first multi-home run game, including a grand slam. During game two, the sophomore recorded two of the offense’s three hits, which were both singles.

In a week’s time, the quarterfinal ties of the UEFA Champions League will take place. As a reminder, the winner of the tie is determined by the aggregate score of the two legs. If the aggregate score is tied after the second leg, extra time and, if needed, penalties are used to determine the winner. With that out of the way, here are the four quarterfinal clashes: Benfica vs. Inter Milan, followed by Manchester City vs. Bayern Munich, Real Madrid vs. Chelsea and AC Milan vs. Napoli.

The first tie-up is Benfica vs. Inter. Benfica made it to the quarterfinals by topping Group H and then thrashing Club Brugge 7-1 on aggregate. Benfica have had a great season so far and are top of the Primeira Liga by 10 points. As for Inter, they were runners up of Group C and bested Porto in the round of 16 tie with a 1-0 aggregate score. Inter are in a tough battle in Serie A and are fighting to stay in the top four to secure Champions League qualification for next season. Both of these teams have lifted this trophy in the past, and with such a storied background in this competition, expect this to be a tight one.

The next tie is Manchester City vs. Bayern in a blockbuster clash. Manchester City topped Group G and beat RB Leipzig 7-1 on aggregate courtesy of Erling Haaland scoring five goals in the second leg, securing their progress to the quarterfinals. As for Bayern, they topped Group C and then bested Paris Saint Germain 3-0 on aggregate to continue their undefeated record in this year’s Champions League. Bayern recently fired manager Julian Nagelsmann and replaced him with Thomas Tuchel who last coached for Chelsea earlier this year. Both of these teams have high aspirations for this season and with such elite talent on both sides, this will be a great tie to watch.

The third quarterfinal tie is a repeat from last year in the form of

Real Madrid vs. Chelsea. Last year, Madrid had to go to extra time to knock the then title holders out of the competition. Both teams have had seasons below their expectations. Just yesterday, Chelsea fired their second manager this season with Graham Potter and have not hired a replacement. Chelsea is currently 11th in the Premier League and have been widely inconsistent this season. Chelsea topped Group E and then beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1 on aggregate. As for Madrid, they are miles behind Barcelona in La Liga and are also behind in the Copa del Rey, leaving the Champions League as potentially the only trophy left on the table. They also topped Group F and then thrashed Liverpool 6-2 on aggregate. With both sides falling behind in their respective leagues, each team will want to progress into the semifinals, making this another tie to watch.

The final tie is an all-Italian one as Milan faces off against Napoli. Milan were runners up in Group E and then beat Tottenham on a slim 1-0 aggregate scoreline.

As for Napoli, they topped Group A and then beat Eintracht Frankfurt

5-0 on aggregate. Milan, who are the defending Serie A champions, have had a rough season and are unlikely to retain the title. The honor of winning that title will most likely go to Napoli, who have had a dominant season and are 16 points clear of second place. It is a matter of when, not if they will lift the trophy at the end of the season. One thing to note is that over the past weekend, Milan did thrash Napoli 4-0 in league play. With Milan being a seven-time Champions League winner and Napoli never lifting up the trophy, this is set up to be a thrilling tie between European royalty and a team that is trying to taste European glory for the first time. The first tie of all of these legs will be next week. The Benfica and Manchester ties will take place on Tuesday, and then the Madrid and Napoli ties taking place on Wednesday. Then the second legs will take place the week after with the Madrid and Napoli ties now on Tuesday and then the Benfica and Manchester ties on Wednesday. As the season hits the home stretch, expect these ties to bring drama and to one of the biggest club competitions in the world.

Varsity Calendar

AWAY

While the Rams may have snapped their five-game win streak, Thiesse had a phenomenal outing in game two against Davidson College this past weekend. Going four-for-four, the junior had a career best game, featuring a double, a home run, two runs scored and three RBIs.

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

Softball

Women’s Tennis

Sydney Wells Sophomore, Softball

Ryan Thiesse Junior, Baseball

All the matches in the tie round of the UEFA Champions League are sure to be fun. COURTESY OF TWITTER

NCAA Women’s Tournament Shows Promise for Future of Women’s Basketball

By LOU ORLANDO ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

There’s a lot going on in the landscape of sports at the moment. The MLB season has officially begun. The NBA and NHL are steamrolling towards playoffs. I think golf is happening. But if you weren’t locked in to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament this weekend, you were doing yourself a disservice.

You also would’ve been in the minority. Friday’s semifinals matchup between the University of South Carolina and the University of Iowa drew 5.5 million viewers. That’s not just the largest audience ever for a semifinal game — it’s nearly triple the average viewership of a nationally televised regular season NBA game (1.6 million). Not to be outdone, Sunday’s championship game between Iowa and Louisiana State University drew an average of 9.9 million viewers with a peak of 12.6 million. It was the most-watched sporting event of the weekend. It was the most viewed NCAA D1 women’s basketball game of all time. It was the most viewed event ever on ESPN+. And most importantly, it’s a massive indication that women’s basketball is trending in the right direction.

Women’s basketball has had a long struggle for viewership, one that is very much still ongoing. If we take a look at the WNBA, their national telecasts averaged 205,000 viewers on ESPN in 2022. That number was actually a 16% decrease from the previous year, meaning that viewership was trending downward. During the WNBA playoffs, the average audience rose to 456,000, which was actually a 22% increase from the previous season. Still, it’s a far cry from the viewership we see for playoff games in both men’s professional and collegiate basketball.

That’s a bit of a downer after the way this article started, but it’s important to frame the landscape of women’s basketball in historical context to properly do justice to this massive weekend and this tournament as a whole. Let’s focus on the collegiate landscape for a second. Last year, the NCAA women’s tournament averaged just under 200,000 viewers per game, an 11% increase. Without even factoring in the Final Four, which did record breaking numbers, the average audience for this tournament was already at 660,000, a 42% increase. Those numbers will take a gargantuan leap up even more once the Final Four games are incorporated.

Why now? Why all of a sudden has women’s D1 basketball captivated audiences on a major, national scale. It seems like there are a couple key reasons. First off, the weekend boasted two of the most enticing matchups we’ve seen in women’s collegiate basketball.

In the Final Four, we were blessed with a matchup between Iowa and South Carolina. South Carolina entered play undefeated at 36-0. They were the consensus best team in women’s basketball, an opinion supported by the NET rankings. On the other side, Iowa boasted the top scoring offense in the nation, averaging 87.8

points per game. And they were led by none other than junior guard Caitlin Clark, the Naismith Player of the Year who was second in the NCAA in scoring. More on her later.

Iowa prevailed, giving us another tantalizing matchup, this time against LSU. Both teams were top 10 in the NET rankings. But this matchup became less about the teams themselves, and more about a clashing of two superstars: Clark versus LSU’s junior forward Angel Reese. Reese, the number two ranked player in her class as a freshman, transferred to LSU after leading the University of Maryland to the Sweet 16 in her sophomore campaign. Clark’s 27.8 points per game, 7.8 rebounds per game and 8.6 assists per game against Reese’s 23.0 points per game and 15.3 rebounds per game. What more could you ask for?

In a year where no #1 seeds reached the Final Four of the men’s tournament, with the highest seed being #4 University of Connecticut, I think it certainly helped to see powerhouse teams make the Final Four. Two #1 seeds made it in: South Carolina and Virginia Tech.

The non #1 seeds were #2 Iowa and #3 LSU, both teams powerhouses in their own right and both led by captivating stars. And while the matchups may have played a factor in viewership, there’s no denying the appeal of a star.

That star was Clark. The numbers speak for themselves — Iowa drew more viewers than any other team in the women’s NCAA tournament. Clark was a headliner in two of the most watched women’s basketball games of all time. In front of a massive audience, Clark excelled. She set the record for most points and assists in a single women’s tournament. She set the record for most three-point field goals in a championship game. Against the University of Louisville in the Elite Eight, she became the first player in men’s or women’s collegiate basketball to record a 40 point triple-double, recording 41 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds. She followed that up with another 41 points against South Carolina, becoming the first player in tournament history with consecutive 40 point games. Even in their loss to LSU in the championship, Clark recorded 30 points. Her ability to score at will was mesmerizing. Her confidence and swagger was only icing on the cake.

We love stars. Stars attract

Varsity Scores & Stats

viewers. This is an oversimplification but it doesn’t make it wrong. Ask some NBA fans why they fell in love with the game. I’d bet most of the kids around my age would cite Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony (for the New Yorkers like myself). I’m not discounting the idea of team fandom, which is no doubt a massive part of the league’s success. But so many people watch the NBA to see its stars. Whether it’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant or Luka Doncic, people tune in to see the players that make them marvel, that make their jaw drop.

Women’s basketball has been searching for that star for a while. To its credit, they’ve produced plenty. Breanna Stewart won four straight championships at the collegiate level before going on to become a star in the WNBA. Whether you go the route of Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Maya Moore or even more recent examples like Kelsey Plum, Britney Griner and Sabrina Ionescu, women’s basketball has no shortage of players that dominated in college and went on to become stars in the WNBA. It just seems as if none of them ever truly captured the national spotlight the way Clark has.

Clark has the potential to usher in a new age of women’s basketball, one that could come with far greater national attention. Not eligible for the WNBA draft, Clark will return to Iowa for her senior campaign. Angel Reese will do the same at LSU. I’m already dreaming of a rematch next year. In my opinion, this works in the favor of the sport. Clark has already shown the makings of a star, the level of which I don’t think we’ve ever seen in women’s basketball. She has the opportunity to build on that fanbase, draw even more attention to women’s college basketball, and then bring that audience to the WNBA when she gets drafted.

Women’s basketball has been searching for stars and it certainly seems like they’re on the way. Clark and co. were able to captivate an audience.

They were able to show that women’s basketball is highly entertaining and electric, and they did so on a national level. I’m reminded of something Ryan Ruocco once learned from Sue Bird. You shouldn’t watch women’s basketball like it’s charity. You should watch it because it entertains and captivates you. After this tournament, it looks like we’re trending that way.

Women’s

Colonial Relays 15th (21 points)

Men’s Track Colonial Relays T-14th (18 points)

News & Notes

Dave Paulsen Named New Head Coach at Holy Cross

Former Fordham Men’s Basketball staff member Dave Paulsen accepted the position of head coach at the College of Holy Cross this past week. Paulsen first came to Fordham underneath former head coach Kyle Neptune as a special advisor to the coach, then being promoted to assistant coach this past year. Prior to serving on staff with the Rams, Paulsen had a long coaching career at Bucknell University.

Men’s Tennis Falls to Richmond and George Mason Women’s Tennis Splits Matches This Weekend

By JOE MASTERS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Fordham Men’s Tennis had a rough time in Fairfax, Va. this weekend as they dropped both their matches to the University of Richmond and George Mason University in crucial Atlantic 10 play.

Starting off on Saturday, the Rams were convincingly defeated by the Richmond Spiders, 4-0. The incomplete score was a result of multiple matches having to be left unfinished as a result of “very tough conditions” according to head coach David Slater. The final, however, shows a complete defeat for the Rams who opened up play by losing two out of three matches and dropping the doubles point. The Rams then lost the only three singles matches that were able to be completed. Despite the rough read on the box score, Slater sees a silver lining in the defeat.

“Playing these types of matches can be tough when the result is 4-0 but all the matches were close,” said Slater.

Every singles match went to a decisive third set, and, unfortunately for the Rams, Richmond held strong, resulting in their victory.

Moving on, the Rams played

a much tighter match the following Sunday, but ultimately fell to George Mason, 4-3.

While the weather held up, the Rams couldn’t quite squeak by the Patriots despite a strong start, which saw Fordham take the doubles point after wins by graduate student Quinn Fender and junior Nicholas Kanazirev, 6-3, and freshmen duo Dhillon Virdee-Oakley and Sampras Rakotondrainibe, 6-4.

The Rams then pushed the Patriots to the ropes thanks to singles victories by both Fender (6-7, 6-4, 6-3) and Rakotondrainibe (6-4, 6-2), but couldn’t clinch the victory as both the fourth and fifth singles matches went to a winner-take-all final third set.

“We couldn’t have played them any closer,” said Slater after the loss. “But the players gave everything they had. We are just a couple of points away from coming away with a win. Great job from the team.”

Next up on the docket for the 5-10 Rams is a Thursday showdown in Worcester against the College of the Holy Cross, who currently sit at 4-8. The Rams will look to get back in the win column after dropping four of their last five.

By BRETT TULIP STAFF WRITER

Fordham Women’s Tennis competed in two conference matches this weekend beginning on Saturday against the University of Richmond, followed by rival Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to close out the weekend on Sunday.

The first Atlantic 10 matchup against Richmond proved to be a successful one for Fordham as they won 4-2. Starting with the doubles matches, the duo of graduate student Valeriya Deminova and senior Avery Aude defeated their opponents 7-5, while graduate student Carlota Casasampere Escoda and senior Rachelle Yang also won 6-3. The dominating doubles play continued for Fordham, and it is always promising to see the team capitalize on their strengths and start with a one-point lead by controlling those matches. Next, in singles play, Deminova continued her strong day by defeating Leonor Oliviera 6-2 in both sets. Other singles wins included Casasampere Escoda’s triumph over Richmond’s Marta Buendia 6-2, 7-5. Junior Eleni Fasoula secured the win in three sets by scores of 7-5, 3-6 and 7-5. The only losses on the day were the narrow losses from sophomore Lorraine Bergmann 6-3, 6-4 and Aude losing her singles matches 7-6, 6-2.

Sunday’s match didn’t go as smoothly as the day before — the team lost to the defending A-10 champion VCU Rams by a score of 4-3. This is the team’s first contest against the Virginia school since losing to them in the A-10 championship last season. It started out rough, with both teams of graduate student Lindsay Hung and Fasoula and Casasampere Escoda and Yang losing their doubles matches by scores of 6-2 and 6-1, respectively. After losing the doubles point, the singles matches provided a bit more success when Fasoula, Aude and Casasampere Escoda all earned a point each with their wins. However, VCU picked up three singles wins themselves. The doubles point would prove

to be the costly deciding factor. After the Rams played the Rams on Sunday, Fordham will continue their Ram battles when they face the University of Rhode Island Rams at home on Saturday. Rhode Island is an inferior opponent on paper, sitting at just 5-12 on the season. However, any in-conference opponent should never be underestimated, and it will be crucial for Fordham to not play down to their competition. This would be an important win for Fordham and would push them above .500 as they currently sit at 7-7 on the year. The team is in the final stretch of the season, and the A-10 tournament is coming up just around the corner later this month.

Records Shatter as LSU Defeats Iowa in the NCAAW Final

By JULIA MOSS STAFF WRITER

This year’s NCAA tournament comes to an emphatic end with the Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers being crowned national champions. LSU defeated the Iowa University Hawkeyes by a score of 102-85. Outside of a champion being crowned, numerous records were broken as we enter a new era of women’s basketball that is reaching numbers both on and off the court that players and fans have never seen before.

Heading into the matchup between the Tigers and Hawkeyes, the story was how Caitlin Clark would continue her historic production streak against a very welldisciplined LSU defense. It’s difficult to imagine how much more momentum Iowa could have had coming into this game having just eliminated the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks just two days prior. However, from the jump LSU proved to be a difficult matchup for the Hawkeyes.

The pace of the first half was largely hot and cold due to intense officiating. There were 12 fouls called in the first quarter and 21 by the end of the first half, leaving several players in foul trouble on both sides. Among those having to play more carefully was Clark, who entered the break with three fouls. Eight other players also had two or more fouls by halftime. Other than officiating, the biggest story of the half was the efficiency of LSU’s Jasmine Carson, who had 21

points on a perfect seven-for-seven shooting from the field.

Entering the second half, LSU seemed to be in the driver’s seat up 59-42, but Iowa made a valiant effort to bring themselves back into the game. Clark began to get hot from behind the arc and started to see the offense from what Iowa fans were used to seeing. However, LSU weathered the storm, stayed composed and responded to Iowa’s run with one of their own.

Foul trouble caught up to Iowa as Clark received a questionable technical foul for tossing the ball to the baseline after a play, marking her fourth of the contest. The third quarter ended 75-69.

It was the fourth quarter when things began to unravel for Iowa.

With Monika Czinano and Clark each with only one foul left before fouling out, LSU did an outstanding job of exploiting their weaknesses by attacking both players on offense to try to draw their fifth fouls. Czinano drew her fifth at

the six-minute mark in the fourth quarter, and had to watch the clock run out on her collegiate career on the bench with her team down 14.

LSU fended off every push of momentum Iowa tried to build, making huge shots with several players, both starters and bench players, truly stepping up on the biggest stage. Head coach Kim Mulkey’s Tigers showed offensive production like we haven’t seen in quite some time, and never in an NCAAW Tournament Championship with their staggering 102 points. The Tigers had 32 points coming off the bench compared to Iowa’s eight. Another difference maker was rebounded, with Iowa being outrebounded 38-26. Iowa was able to escape South Carolina being heavily outrebounded, but LSU proved that they would capitalize on their physical advantages. Even in the loss, it shouldn’t be overlooked that Clark still performed at an incredible level. When a player secures 40-point

triple-doubles, expectations can become unrealistic, but Clark was still able to score 30 points with eight assists. In doing so, she also broke the record for most points ever scored in a single NCAA tournament. The help around Clark would serve as a difference maker as only she was able to eclipse over 15 points while LSU had four different players surpass that marker.

For LSU, it was a team effort across the board. Angel Reese achieved yet another doubledouble with 15 points and 10 rebounds, making her the first player to reach 34 in a single season in women’s collegiate basketball history. LaDazhia Williams came up big with 20 points, Alex Morris had 21 and as mentioned before, the presence off the bench from Carson turned the momentum in a big way for the Tigers.

It can’t be overstated how much of an impact Mulkey has had on this team. Just two years ago, Mulkey took over this Tigers team that was coming off a nine-win season. In the very next year, she brought this team to 26-6, and now in her second season, she’s brought them something even more special: a National Championship.

To say the least, there’s a rivalry brewing between the two teams as the fallout from the result has created drama capturing the media’s attention. As time ran off the clock, Reese ran over to Clark and motioned her hand in the “you can’t see me” hand gesture we saw Clark showcase just one game prior. It’s

clear the LSU roster was not a fan of Clark’s actions throughout the season. As Reese said after the game, “Caitlin Clark is a hell of a player but I don’t take disrespect lightly. She disrespected Alexis and I wanted to pick her pocket. But I had a moment at the end of her game. I was in my bag, I was in my moment.”

What’s most exciting about the championship is that the future remains bright for both LSU and Iowa. LSU’s leader Reese is only a sophomore and Flau’jae Johnson is a freshman. While Iowa will be saying goodbye to their reliable post presence Czinano, the Iowa Hawkeye fan base can look forward to at least one more year of Clark.

This year’s NCAA Tournament finale brought in just under 10 million viewers, an all-time record for any NCAAW basketball game in the history of the game. That statistic along with the 103% viewer increase from just last year proves women’s sports has momentum never seen before. The future of collegiate women’s basketball has all signs pointing up, and as media attention towards the sport continues to increase, so will the momentum behind the sport. The LSU Tigers cap off an incredible season with a national championship, and considering the talent they’re bringing back next year, this won’t be the last time we are talking about this team in the same breath as championship contenders.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

Fordham stayed at .500 with the A-10 Tournament on the horizon.

COURTESY OF TWITTER

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese clashed in the NCAAW Championship.

Rangers Clinch Stanley Cup Playoff Berth Amid Setbacks

By ALLIE COPPOLA STAFF WRITER

The New York Rangers punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second straight season last Monday, and continue to hold on to third place in the Metropolitan Division. In a preview of the likely first round playoff matchup, the Rangers suffered a close loss to the New Jersey Devils on Thursday. They traveled to Buffalo for a back-toback game on Friday night and gained a point in the standings after an overtime loss. As the regular season comes to a close, the Blueshirts look to turn their play around and gear up for what they hope will be a lengthy playoff run.

One of the biggest worries for the team and fans alike has been reigning Vezina Trophy winner Igor Shesterkin’s slump throughout the end of February and beginning of March. Just in time for the playoffs, he seems to have returned to form, boasting a 0.932 save percentage and a shutout in the month of March. Backup goalie Jaroslav Halak is not too far behind him, with a 0.918 save percentage and an additional shutout in the past month. It’s safe to say Shetserkin clawed his way out of the slump and is polishing up his game just in time for the postseason.

Another concern has been the notable playoff warrior Ryan

Lindgren’s long-term injury. After he got checked against the boards in a game against the Washington Capitals back in February, he suffered a shoulder injury that saw him sidelined until late March. He returned for one game and re-aggravated the injury, and there’s been minimal news on when he’ll return to the ice. While there’s no rush for him to return for the remaining regular season games, the Rangers perform worse when he’s not in the lineup. His value in blocking shots and raising the level of his defensive partner Adam Fox’s performance is missing when he’s not on the ice, but his health in the playoffs is vital.

On a more positive note, the Rangers’ biggest trade deadline addition, Patrick Kane, is continuing to build chemistry with the team and is comfortably producing with 10 points in 16 games. He will be a valuable player to have in the locker room for the playoffs, as he is a three-time Stanley Cup champion and won the Conn Smythe Trophy, given to the playoff MVP.

Vladimir Tarasenko, who is another deadline addition, also has a Stanley Cup win under his belt and will prove to be valuable for the Rangers’ longevity in the postseason. The Blueshirts took

on the Capitals in a Sunday matinée, and gained a valuable two points in the standings after a 5-2 blowout. Alexis Lafreniere’s highlight-reel goal and Artemi Panarin’s three assists carried the team to victory, while newly-minted Rangers Kane and Tarasenko added a point each. Mika Zibanejad reached a new career high for points in a season and is creeping up on the 40-goal mark. It was a turnaround performance after dropping two straight games, proving their ability to bounce back which will be important once the regular season ends. With five games remaining, the Blueshirts are heartily trying to rise above the Devils in the Metropolitan Division rankings in order to gain home-ice advantage in the first round of playoffs. It’s shaping up to be a Rangers-Devils matchup, but the top three teams in the division are only separated by four points.

The division seems to still be up for grabs, but the Rangers, Devils and Hurricanes are all safely in the playoffs while the Penguins and Islanders battle it out for the Wild Card position. Now after Sunday’s win against the Capitals, the Rangers will face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday in their first matchup since Dec. 29 last year.

Golf Has StrongShowing at Monmouth Hawk Invitational

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

Fordham Golf traveled to New Jersey for their second competition of the spring at the Monmouth Hawk Invitational in Deal, N.J.

The Rams finished second out of four teams, an improvement from their performance at the South Jersey Kick-Off last month. At that tournament, Fordham finished in sixth place out of seven teams.

Junior Nicholas Manning was Fordham’s top performer on the day. He finished at three-under 68, a career best day for Manning both in terms of overall finish and singleround score. In first place individually was Monmouth University’s Ethan Lee, who finished at fiveunder.

This was a step up for Manning, who finished in a tie for 44th place at the South Jersey Kick-Off.

Senior P.J. O’Rourke was also a

top-five finisher, coming in at threeover 74.

Behind him was senior Andreas Aivazoglou in a tie for seventh place at six-over 77 and senior John Kryscio in a tie for tenth place with a 78.

The Rams have just one more event before the Atlantic 10 Championship at the end of April in Florida. Fordham is looking to improve on their ninth place finish at A-10’s last year, where O’Rourke’s performance was a bright spot. His fifth place finish in Florida a year ago marked a program best for Fordham.

Fordham will travel to Easton, Pa. for the Abarta Coca-Cola Collegiate Invitational hosted by Lafayette College beginning on April 16. That invitational will likely feature a large number of talented schools and will serve as a good tune-up just two weeks before A-10’s.

F1: Absolute Chaos in Australia

By MICHAEL HERNANDEZ ASST. SPORTS EDITOR EMERITUS

Over the weekend, Formula 1 continued its 2023 season in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix. Heading into the weekend, Red Bull was on a mission to continue its run of form after winning the first two races of the season. Another team that wanted to continue their form was Aston Martin with Fernando Alonso finishing third in the previous two races.

In qualifying, the big shock was that the Red Bull of Sergio Perez crashed out, putting him dead last in P20. Meanwhile, his teammate, Max Verstappen, was able to put his car on pole ahead of the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in second and third, respectively, and Alonso in fourth. The Ferrari cars of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were in fifth and seventh. Due to his early exit, Perez changed various parts of the engine. These parts exceeded his allocation for the season, so Perez was forced to start from the pit lane. Normally it brings a grid penalty but since he was last, it was a good time to add more components to his seasonal allocation to avoid taking more penalties in future races. When the lights went out on Sunday, Verstappen had a poor start compared to the Mercedes pair and fell down to third. A little bit further back, Leclerc went off the track after colliding with Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll and got stuck in

the gravel trap, forcing him out of the race to make it two DNF’s in three races so far. This brought out the safety car to remove the stricken Ferrari. On lap four, the safety car was called back in and the green flag was shown with Verstappen trying to get past both Hamilton and then Russell. However, on lap seven, another safety car was brought out due to the Williams of Alex Albon crashing out of the race. Russell and Sainz used this safety car period to pit and effectively get a “cheaper” pit stop. Unfortunately, the red flag was then shown due to the amount of gravel that got onto the track from the Albon crash. Under a red flag, drivers can switch tires, effectively giving them a free pit stop. This put Russell in seventh and Sainz down to 11th. Nearly everyone put on the hard tires so that they could go to the end of the race without pitting again. Hamilton now was leading from Verstappen and then Alonso who was in third.

Once the track was cleared, the cars lined up on the grid for the restart. When the lights went out for a second time, everyone got away cleanly with Hamilton staying ahead of Verstappen and then Alonso. On lap 12, Verstappen took the lead and didn’t look back, building a gap to Hamilton. Alonso was just out of Drag Reduction System (DRS) range from Hamilton as both drivers were managing their tires to make it to the end of the race while at the same time Verstappen was building a gap. On lap 18, the Virtual Safety Car was

brought out as Russell retired due to an engine failure, but it only lasted a lap before the green flag was shown. Meanwhile as the race continued, Perez was slowly picking off drivers one by one as he continued his recovery drive.

However on lap 54, the Haas of Kevin Magnussen crashed out by hitting the barrier with his rear right wheel, causing the tire to fall off and debris to get onto the track. This brought out a safety car which was then changed to a red flag on lap 55, giving us a sprint to the finish. The top seven at this point was

Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso, Sainz, the Alpine of Pierre Gasly, Stroll and then Perez. On lap 57, when the lights went out for a third time, Verstappen got away cleanly and held the lead from Hamilton into turn one. Right behind them, Gasly locked up, forcing Perez to take evasive action and drive through the gravel. At the same time, Sainz tagged Alonso in the back, spinning his compatriot out of the final podium place. There was also a massive crash between Gasly and his teammate Esteban Ocon with both cars retiring, causing

debris to go all over the place. This brought out another red flag. With the drivers going into the pits, it meant that if the race resumed, the formation lap would be the final lap. In addition to that, since a full sector wasn’t completed before the red flag, the race reverted back to the order at the restart which would promote Alonso back into third and Perez back into seventh. It was also announced that Sainz was given a five-second penalty for the incident with Alonso. When the cars went back onto the track, Verstappen crossed the line to win a hectic Australian Grand Prix with Hamilton in second and Alonso in third. Sainz crossed the line fourth but because of his penalty he was demoted to 12th, the last of the race finishers and taking him out of the points. This promoted Perez to fifth, a wonderful recovery drive from starting in the pit lane. This was a weekend to forget for Ferrari with neither car scoring a single point. Verstappen leads the championship, 15 points ahead of Perez. Red Bull also lead the constructors championship with 123 points, 58 points ahead of Aston Martin in second. Meanwhile, Ferrari is fourth with a lowly 26 points with Leclerc 10th in the drivers standings with only six points after three races. The next race is in four weeks for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. One thing to note is that Baku will have a sprint race, which will change the race weekend. Baku has had its fair share of chaos, so expect the unexpected in a race that is sure to excite.

This past weekend was filled with shocking surprises that kept us all entertained.

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COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS Finishing second out of four teams, the Rams showed prowess on the course.

By MADDIE BIMONTE SPORT S EDITOR

In the first week of Atlantic 10 conference play, Fordham Baseball dropped their opening series one game to two. It also marked the end of the team’s five-game win streak, something they had amassed since March 21.

As the Rams traveled to Davidson College, they had a test ahead of them. Davidson was on a five-game win streak of their own, with a record of 13-10 heading into game one.

The Rams jumped to scoring first with a sacrifice fly from freshman Daniel Bucciero to score junior Ryan Thiesse. Bucciero, a key part of the freshman core, has excelled at the plate. The freshman went one-for-four on the day with two RBIs.

Davidson answered back in the second with an RBI single and double to put the Wildcats ahead 1-4 with help from Michael O’Shaughnessy, who went on to be named A-10 Rookie of the Week following the series.

Fordham was able to slowly chip away at the Wildcats’ lead as Bucciero once again delivered an RBI, this time in the form of a single, to score Thiesse.

Following that in the fourth, sophomore Sebastian Mexico singled to centerfield, scoring senior Will Findlay. The tying run came into play courtesy of a Nico Boza double to right

Baseball Drops Opening A-10 Series

field to bring in Mexico.

However, the Wildcats regained the lead immediately after putting up three RBIs, and the Rams were not able to counter.

A late Selinger home run would make the final score 5-7, and the Rams dropped the first matchup of the three-game series.

Game two would fare horribly for the Rams as they dropped the game with a football-esque score of 7-23.

Fordham pitchers struggled on the mound as graduate student Gabe Karslo had an irregular outing, giving up a total of seven hits, nine runs and recording only two strikeouts across 3.1 innings pitched.

Junior relief pitcher Nate Scott also was unable to combat the red-hot Davidson bats as he got shelled in 0.1 innings pitched with a total of four hits, seven runs and two walks.

Fordham did have some offense from Thiesse, who had himself a day. Thiesse went four-for-four in a career best game with a double, home run and three RBIs. Freshman Tommy McAndrews also delivered some runs for the Rams in the form of a home run and two runs.

In total, Davidson tacked on 18 hits and 23 runs to overcome the Rams by a landslide. The Rams had one final game left to go to prevent the sweep.

In game three, Fordham once again got off to a rough start, with Davidson taking an early lead in the third courtesy of a three-run homer from Davidson’s Ryan Wilson.

Fordham was able to catch a break as the Wildcats’ pitching broke down, giving the Rams the ability to tie the game.

In a three-batter series walk, the Rams were able to tie it all

up at three heading into the bottom of the fourth.

While Davidson delivered another home run ball, this time from Henry Koehler, the Rams were saved by the hero of the day, graduate student Peter DeMaria, who homered to left center, bringing home himself and McAndrews.

McAndrews would also step up to the plate and get on base again, with an RBI single to bring the Rams’ scoring total to six for the game.

A final score of 6-4 would wrap things up for the Rams against Davidson and ensure that they wouldn’t be swept in their first A-10 series. Up next to close out the week, they traveled up to Siena College to face the Saints for a one-game matchup.

Things did not start off on the right foot for the Rams, as they went down 0-4 in the first

inning, as Fordham starting pitcher Dominic Cunha allowed the first six Saints to reach base. After a pitching change in which graduate student William Simeone came in the first inning to close things out for the Rams.

In the second inning, Simeone gave up another run to make the score 0-5, but Fordham still had some fight left in them.

DeMaria doubled down the left field line to deliver two RBIs to bring the Rams up to five but yet another run for Siena made it impossible to come back.

Rams pitching would once again crumble under talented hitting and Siena went on to record 11 runs, while the Rams only added one more run after the third, with DeMaria homering to centerfield to make the final score 3-11.

There’s still a lot for the Rams to improve upon, but the Rams offense has some bright spots. New additions to the team in McAndrews and DeMaria have delivered offensively with their batting averages being strong.

McAndrews currently leads the team in batting average at .322, meanwhile DeMaria leads the team in RBIs with 22.

The Rams still have time to improve their 12-17 record as they embark on their next series against the University of Rhode Island at Houlihan Park in the Bronx this week. The first game starts on April 6 at 1 p.m.

Softball Loses Two Against George Mason

By NICK GUZMAN SPORTS EDITOR

Fordham Softball continued their nine-game homestand this past week, beginning with a doubleheader against Drexel University on Wednesday. After, the Rams battled George Mason University over the weekend in their second Atlantic 10 series of the season.

The Rams were fresh off a series win against St. Bonaventure heading into Wednesday’s games against Drexel. The Dragons entered the Bronx at 5-15 and as losers of two straight against Stony Brook University.

Senior Devon Miller took the circle for the Rams in game one against the Dragons and was terrific, pitching a complete game while allowing just one run on five hits. This was Miller’s second straight seven-inning effort in what has been a positive stretch for the Pennsylvania native after some early season struggles.

The game was scoreless entering the bottom of the third when Fordham’s offense struck. With runners on second and third, graduate student Julia Martine layed down a bunt, and an error from Drexel pitcher Holly Spletzer allowed sophomore Mallory McClellan to score. The Rams tacked on two more in the third thanks to an RBI double from sophomore Sydney Wells that scored Martine and senior

outfielder Michaela Carter.

That third inning provided enough offense for Fordham to see out the victory, as Miller allowed just the one run in the fifth to secure a 3-1 win.

In the second game against Drexel, the script flipped in favor of the Dragons. Both freshman Holly Beeman and junior Bailey Enoch struggled in the circle, although they didn’t receive much support from the defense behind them. Beeman allowed four runs and Enoch allowed five, but only five of those nine total runs allowed were earned. The Rams committed four errors defensively, extending innings and giving Drexel ample opportunities to strike.

Drexel got a gem from Jessica Schable, who held Fordham to just one run across seven innings. That lone run came from a Martine

RBI single in the fifth, but Drexel walked away from Bahoshy Field with a 9-1 win in game two and a split of the doubleheader.

Against George Mason, the Rams and Patriots played three tight contests. George Mason won the first and last games of the series, taking two from the Rams in A-10 action.

Game one was a low-scoring affair that remained scoreless until the fifth inning, when Carter drove in graduate student Sarah Taffet to give Fordham a 1-0 lead. Miller was in the circle again for the Rams and was terrific until she hit a roadblock in the top of the sixth. George Mason’s Nicole Bechtel led off the inning with a game-tying home run, which was immediately followed by a double and a walk to set up the Patriots in a position to take the lead. They did just that on a Maddy

Myers RBI single that scored Rachel Warrens. A sacrifice fly then made it 3-1 George Mason, with Fordham now needing a late-inning rally in order to win. But after going behind, the Rams couldn’t get a runner on base.

George Mason took game one by a final of 3-1.

Games two and three were played as a double header on Sunday. Looking to bounce back in game two, Fordham fell behind 4-0 by the fifth inning. Down and facing a second straight defeat to a conference opponent, Sydney Wells stepped up in a huge way for Fordham.

First, she hit a solo homer in the bottom of the fourth to get the Rams on the board. Then, Wells delivered the keynote in the fifth with a massive grand slam to put Fordham in the lead 5-4.

George Mason answered back

with a run on a sacrifice fly in the fifth, but the Rams delivered the knockout blow in the sixth on an RBI single from freshman Neleh Nogay. Beeman, who came on in relief of Enoch, shut the door in the seventh to secure the 6-5 victory for Fordham.

With the series tied at one, George Mason were able to win the decisive third game in another low-scoring contest. Although Beeman pitched in relief of Enoch just hours earlier, she was given the start in game three. Remarkably, she went the distance, pitching seven full innings.

Fordham got on the board with a run in the fourth thanks to an Enoch sacrifice fly, and the score stayed at 1-0 until the fifth inning. George Mason scored two in the fifth of Beeman on a pair of RBI singles to take the lead. The Patriots then added an insurance run in the sixth as Fordham’s offense struggled to figure out the pitching of Aly Rayle. Fordham were unable to spark a comeback late, as George Mason took game three by a score of 3-1 and headed back to Virginia with a series win.

The Rams now sit at 11-17 overall and 3-3 in A-10 play. They’ll be back in action with a one-off game against Hofstra University on Wednesday to conclude their homestand before hitting the road for a threegame set with the University of Rhode Island in Kingston.

Fordham Baseball lost two of three against Davidson College to end their five-game winning streak.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS

The Rams split a series with Drexel and played three close games against George Mason this past week.

COURTESY OF FORDHAM ATHLETICS