The Fordham Ram Volume 97, Issue 3
Serving The Fordham University Community Since 1918 FordhamRam.com F dh R
February F b 44, 2015
Employers to Fordham: Step it Up
SLC Deals With New Initiatives
By AKASH BHATIA & ROBERT PALAZOLLO
By MAX PRINZ STAFF WRITER
STAFF WRITERS
Students spent the days leading up to last Wednesday’s Arts and Media career fair putting the final touches on their resumes, practicing their communication skills and choosing professional outfits. They came in droves to Pope Auditorium at Lincoln Center in search of a perfect job opportunity. Little did they know that less than two-thirds of employers would report being even moderately impressed with them. A recent email sent to the entire student body from Career Services said, “Only 63.7 percent of employers responded that they were moderately or extremely impressed by Fordham students.” Career Services calculated that number based on surveys of employers taken at career fairs in the fall semester. The survey asked them to rank Fordham students in four categories: resume, Professional appearance, the “30-Second Pitch” and “Organizational Knowledge,” meaning knowing basic facts about the company. “It may seem vain, kind of, but it is important, that first impression,” said Associate Director of Career Services Cassie Sklarz, when asked to elaborate on the results. “That first visual impression is very, very important.” Visual impressions may actually be where Fordham students perform best in front of prospective employers. The survey data from Career Services shows that 84 percent of employers surveyed rated student’s professional appearance at “above average” or “excellent.” However, the rankings go down from there. While 74 percent of employers rated Fordham students’ resumes as “above average,” just 59 percent said the same thing about the “30-second pitch.” And, just 42 percent of potential employers believed Fordham students had an “above average” or “exceptional” knowledge of the company for which they were hoping to work. Andrew Donchak, FCLC ’18, was SEE CAREERS, PAGE 3
in this issue
Opinion
Page 8
Human Trafficking in the Superbowl
Culture
Page 13
A look at Superbowl commercials
Sports
Page 24
Track sets school records
MATTHEW MOORE/ THE FORDHAM RAM
A recent Career Services survey found that 63.7 percent of employers were only moderately impressed by students.
News Analysis
Spike in Requests Means Budget Cuts for Clubs By JOE VITALE, KATIE MEYER & LAURA SANICOLA RAM EDITORS
During its budget day for Spring 2015, United Student Government’s Budget Committee allocated close to $414,000 to almost 80 student clubs and organizations. The allocations are used by clubs to fund events, run programs, lead trips and host guests, among other costs. As many student leaders have learned — or, in some cases, are in the process of learning — a club’s budget allocation can determine the success of a club for a given semester, unless it is successful in the appeals
process. Without advertising funds, event attendance can suffer. Without programming funds, the quality of club events can decrease, along with its student support. After a review of the budget report, which was prepared by the Committee Chair, Kara Norton, FCRH ’15, The Fordham Ram found some clubs fared well in the budgeting process, sometimes receiving 100 percent — in one case, 102 percent — of their requested sums. Other clubs, however, were not as fortunate. Many received just a fraction of what they requested. In all, close to $760,000 was requested by the university’s 77 clubs, and 55 percent of all requests were
fulfilled by the committee, which consists of nine students and a nonvoting chair. Though it outlines the budget breakdown for the semester, the committee’s 27-page report provides no explicit explanation as to why some clubs fared better than others. A sharp contrast between requests for Spring 2015 and semesters past, however, paint a clear image of why the process brought cuts to a number of campus clubs and organizations. SEE BUDGET, PAGE 6
Follow the Money
An ongoing series covering the 2014-15 budget process and its effect on student life at Fordham.
Leaders of the four major student governments — USG, CAB, CSA and RHA — offered the latest updates on their work at the first Student Life Council meeting of the semester this past Wednesday. SLC had a packed agenda, but one of the highlights of the meeting was the vote to write a statement of support for the Students for Fair Trade. Students for Fair Trade, a club that operates in cooperation with the Fair Trade Program of the Gabelli School of Business, sought support to help bolster its efforts in persuading the university to make a statement committing to Fair Trade. United Student Government passed its own statement of support in November of 2013. Students for Fair Trade (SFT) was represented at SLC by two students, Tiffany Melillo, GSB ‘15, and Michael Billotti, GSB ‘15, who serve as the club's president and vice president, respectively. Both believe the statement of support would help them as they seek to make Fordham a Fair Trade university. Fordham already meets four of the five criteria laid out for achieving Fair Trade status, and the fifth, a resolution passed through by the Board of Trustees or the President's office, is SFT's goal. "The resolution essentially acSEE SLC, PAGE 2
Following Labs Could Use a Facelift, Argue Students Delays, Weight he has to use for that research, like atomic force microscopes, optical and fluorescence microscopes and Room Opens circular dichroism, are expensive, By MICHAEL CAVANAUGH STAFF WRITER
After some delay, the most recent addition to Rose Hill’s athletic facilities is available for use by students and faculty. Located in the Lombardi Center above the squash courts, this new facility was originally slated to open in late October, but a tweet by Rose Hill’s United Student Government (USG) broke the news midway through the month that the Athletic Department had pushed the opening back to January. In an earlier interview with The Fordham Ram, Director of Athletics David Roach stated that the delay was a result of ordering higher quality equipment. “We didn’t go with the less expensive, cheaper equipment,” said Roach. “When we went to order it, we could get the plates, dumbbells and bars whenever we wanted, but the racks are being custom-made and manufactured.” While many students were still SEE GYM, PAGE 6
and nowhere to be found in Fordham’s chemistry labs, on the upper floors of John Mulcahy Hall. That means he has to travel for a lot of his research, and has used the facilities at Queens College, City College of New York and Bronx Community College. He usually commutes to one of those labs at least once a week, if not more, and Dr. Ipsita Banerjee, a professor of biochemistry and nanomaterials, often accompanies him. Her research focus is similar to Romanelli’s — designing, as she said, “nano-scale biomaterials that are potentially capable of regrowth [or] regeneration of tissue such as bone or cartilage… as well as tarCASEY CHUN/ THE FORDHAM RAM geted drug delivery to cells such as Inadequate lab equipment forces students to commute to other labs in the area. cancer cells.” Because of her expertise, she ofis working on creating new mateten serves as his mentor, and they, By KATIE MEYER rials for use in bone and cartilage as well as a few other students in MANAGING EDITOR tissue regeneration, as well as drug the same area, do a lot of research delivery throughout the body. It is Steven Romanelli, FCRH ’16, together. not an easy area of study, and it is is a chemistry major and biology Banerjee has been a professor at made even harder by the fact that minor who is currently studying, as Fordham for 10 years, and in that Romanelli often commutes for two he puts it, the “synthesis and applitime, she said. Fordham’s lab facilihours just to get his research done. cation of nanoscale peptide-based ties have been a source of frustraThat is because the equipment amphiphiles.” In layman’s terms, he SEE LABS, PAGE 7