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SERVING THE FORDHAM UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY FOR OVER 90 YEARS
1918-2012
OCTOBER 24, 2012
VOLUME 94, ISSUE 18
Fordham Foundry Opens in Fordham Plaza Students, Business Incubator Partners With the New York City’s Small Business Services to Expand Entrepreneurship Program By KELLY KULTYS ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Fordham’s Center for Entrepreneurship, through its partnership with New York City’s Department of Small Business Services (SBS), opened the Fordham Foundry, a small-business incubator, on Monday, Oct. 15. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and several other elected officials were on hand to unveil the 30,000-square-foot facility located at 400 Fordham Road in Fordham Plaza. The space includes not only the Fordham Foundry, but also NYC Business Solutions Services and a Workforce1 career center. The facility’s goals include “supporting the Fordham community in developing and launching businesses, creating businesses that remain in the Bronx and spark economic growth and job creation and serving the existing greater Bronx community of entrepreneurs,” according to a press release from Fordham’s eNewsroom. The Fordham Foundry will serve primarily as an incubator for new startup businesses within the Fordham community. Plans for the Foundry began approximately two years ago, when Dr. Christine Janssen-Selvadurai took over as director of entrepreneurship in the Gabelli School of Business (GSB). “I had this pea in the brain that if we wanted to be recognized and acknowledged as a leading entrepreneurship program at the
Residents Rally For KARA
Kingsbridge Armory Rally Focuses on Social Justice By TAYLOR ENGDAHL COPY CHIEF
PHOTO BY ELIZABETH ZANGHI/THE RAM
The Foundry, located on Fordham Road and Webster Avenue, shares space with Workforce1 and NYC Business Solutions.
undergraduate level, we needed an entrepreneurship major, which I’m currently working on, and we needed an incubator,” Janssen-Selvadurai said. Janssen-Selvadurai worked with several members of the GSB faculty, including Professor Mitchell H. Fillet and Dr. Donna Rapaccioli, dean of GSB, to put this idea into action. They received a lot of support, especially because their plan was going to help provide an environment that would foster job creation. “A year ago, a finance professor, Mitch Fillet, came on board and he and I have been like partnersin-crime ever since,” Janssen-Sel-
vadurai said. “I realized there was no way I could have done it myself, and so I’m very grateful for his partnership.” Janssen-Selvadurai and Fillet’s preliminary plans were put into place this July with the help of the City of New York, especially the Commissioner for the Department of Small Business, Robert Walsh. “We were introduced this summer to Commissioner Walsh, a two-time Fordham grad,” JanssenSelvadurai said. “He loves Fordham, so his team came on board as well. We had his team and government relations here, the whole shebang working on this.”
Their plans were quickly set into action during what Janssen-Selvadurai described as a “whirlwind” period of time. “Everything just went down in July,” Janssen-Selvadurai said. “It was crazy and I loved it.” The first step in creating an incubator was locating the right space. “We were looking for a space oncampus, but there were none, so we had to go off-campus,” JanssenSelvadurai said. “Then we were going to go right across the street from the Walsh Library. [Commissioner Walsh and the City of NYC] had already leased 30,000 square feet of space in 400 Fordham PlaSEE INCUBATOR, PAGE 2
This past Wednesday, Oct. 17, a group of Fordham students gathered on the steps of Walsh Library, preparing to walk to St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church for a rally hosted by the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA). A division of a local grassroots organization focused on issues of social justice, the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, KARA seeks to unite the community around a redevelopment plan for the Armory that will be beneficial to Bronx residents. “We are proud of the fact that our organizing has led to verbal commitments from both developers around community space and living wage jobs,” Amanda Altman, a KARA organizer wrote in an email. “Now it's time to take the next step. Our community priorities must be in the lease with the city or in a Community Benefits Agreement, for us to know we have a deal we can count on.” SEE RALLY, PAGE 3
Stand-Up Takes Over Gotham Comedy Club Fordham’s Stand-Up Comedy Troop Participates in ‘Gotham’s New Talent Showcase’ in New York City, Provides Crowd With Laughs By DEVON SHERIDAN ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITOR
Whiffs of phantom laughter and applause in the area of Collins Hall (on the freshman side of campus) have become something of a norm on recent weekend nights. The exact location of the laughter is the Blackbox Theater, a small, dark, mildly-intimate and relatively-unknown performance theater behind Collins. The source of the laughter? A happily-entertained crowd of students enjoying the witty ramblings and saucy jokes of Fordham StandUp. Formed in October of last year, Fordham Stand-Up has filled the hole for a much-needed on-campus-stand-up-group. The group has been regularly performing at the Blackbox since the beginning of the semester, with three shows to date and another show scheduled for this weekend, Oct. 26-28. Last Tuesday, the group took its talents far off campus, having landed a gig at “Gotham's New Talent Showcase,” a weekly stand-up show at the popular comedic venue,
Gotham Comedy Club. The show began at 7 p.m. As the clock ticked closer to showtime and the tables began to fill, Fordham students surely recognized the abundance of fellow classmates around the room. In fact, the show was informally dubbed on the stand-up group's Facebook page as “Fordham Night.” Eight of Fordham StandUp's group, ranging from sophomores to alumni, performed on the night. They were: Chris Lee, FCRH ’11; Dennis Flynn, FCRH ’12; Anthony Schepis, FCRH ’13; Tim Rozmus, GSB ’13; Michael Drosos, FCRH ’13; Drew Rotunno, FCRH ’14; Tim Bridge, FCRH ’14; James Murtagh, FCRH ’15; Nick Pappas, FCRH ’15; and Jeffrey Sharkey, FCRH ’15. For the young entertainers, the show was both a happily-received affirmation of their comedic brand and another accomplishment to cross out on the aspiring comedians’ to-do list. “The entire night was surreal [...] Being able to perform your own material at a legitimate comedy club in front of not only friends and
COURTESY OF TIM ROZMUS
Members of Fordham’s Stand-Up Comedy Troop provided the audience with an evening of entertainment. New York strangers, but professional comedians as well, and have it be successful is awesome,” Tim Bridge, FCRH ’14, said. Prior to showtime, the group was informed that a comedic scout would be present in the crowd, undoubtedly adding a sense of importance to the mood, if not a little extra unexpected pressure.
Another unexpected presence in the room on Tuesday night was that of Jim Gaffigan, a popular and successful stand-up comedian and actor, who stopped by to practice new material. “We all look up to Gaffigan and some of us know his discography almost by heart, so for him to perform there that night was
awesome,” Mike Drosos, FCRH ’13, said. “When he arrived halfway through the show, we all just stopped worrying about our own sets.” Gaffigan stood poised on stage, professionally delivering joke after joke, but more impressive were the young Fordham amateurs who SEE COMEDY, PAGE 11