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Fordham University

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Fordham University
Seal of Fordham University
Latin: Universitas Fordhamensis
MottoSapientia et Doctrina
(Wisdom and Learning)
TypePrivate
Established1841 (as St. John's College)
Endowment$372 million [1]
PresidentJoseph M. McShane, S.J.
Undergraduates8,430
Postgraduates7,579 (1,652 law)
Location
New York
,
NY
,
USA
CampusUrban
AthleticsNCAA Division I
Colors Maroon and White
MascotRam File:Fordham University mascot.gif
Websitewww.fordham.edu

Fordham University is a co-educational private university in New York City. Founded in 1841 as St. John's College, Fordham University is currently one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

The University has 11 schools spread out on three campuses in and around New York City. Its main campus, Rose Hill, is in the Bronx and is home to the undergraduate Fordham College at Rose Hill and the College of Business Administration as well as the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Religion & Religious Education. The Lincoln Center Campus, in Manhattan, houses the undergraduate Fordham College at Lincoln Center as well as the School of Law, the Graduate School of Business Administration, the Graduate School of Education, and the Graduate School of Social Service. The Tarrytown Campus, in Westchester County, New York, houses the all-female Marymount College of Fordham University. Marymount College will be phased out in 2007; however, the campus will remain active, supporting numerous programs and graduate schools. In addition, the undergraduate Fordham College of Liberal Studies holds classes on all three campuses, providing unconventional scheduling and the flexibility of multiple campuses in order to accommodate students who are employed full-time, or otherwise unable to take advantage of the offerings at the other undergraduate schools. The University also has a 113-acre biological field station, the Louis Calder Center, in Armonk, New York and a Graduate School of Business in Beijing, China.

Fordham is officially an independent institution, but strongly embraces its Jesuit heritage. "For most students, the Roman Catholic influence is positive," one reads in The Fiske Guide to Colleges 1998, "and many students say that the Jesuit tradition is the school's best attribute."

Fordham is listed as one of the top seventy national universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. In 2006, BusinessWeek magazine ranked Fordham's College of Business Administration 48th nationally in what it called "the most comprehensive ranking ever of U.S. undergraduate business programs." Fordham University School of Law was ranked 32 in the nation in the 2006 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. Fordham Law is now the 15th most selective law school in the United States. In 2004, the Graduate School of Social Service was ranked 14th nationally by U.S. News & World Report.

In 2003, Fordham's enrollment included more than 8,000 undergraduate students and more than 7,000 graduate students. Fordham awards bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.


History

The Administration Building at the Rose Hill Campus.

Early History

Fordham University was founded by the Irish-born, Most Reverend John Joseph Hughes (his nickname, "Dagger John", was inspired by the way the cross he always incribed next to his signature appeared to some), Archbishop of New York, as Saint John’s College in 1841, and was the first Catholic institution of higher education in the northeastern United States. The Most Reverend Hughes purchased the old Rose Hill manor at $30,000 for the purpose of establishing the school. St. John's College was opened with six students on June 24, 1841. The Reverend John McCloskey (afterward the Archbishop of New York and first American Cardinal) was its president, and its faculty was secular priests and lay instructors. The college was paired with a seminary, St. Joseph's, which had been founded in 1839 and was in the charge of Italian Lazarists (also known as Vincentians), with the Reverend Dr. Felix Villanis at its head.

The school received its charter to grant degrees in theology, arts, law, and medicine, April 10, 1846, by the New York state legislature. Also in 1846, Bishop Hughes had convinced a group of Jesuits working in Kentucky to move to New York and staff his new school. But part of the agreement between Hughes and the Jesuits was that they would also open a school in what was then the city proper, and they lost little time in doing so. In September of 1847 the first school of Fordham in Manhattan opened its doors on the Lower East Side of the city, on Elizabeth and Walker Streets, across the street from the border of the notorious "Five Points" neighborhood. A devastating fire five months later forced the new school to move to the basement of St. James Catholic Church to finish its first year of operation. From 1848 to 1850 the school operated out of rented space on Third Avenue in the East Village, until its first permanent home was constructed on West 15th Street, just off of Sixth Avenue. In 1861 this school, now called the College of St. Francis Xavier, was granted its own charter and became an independent institution, although many ties remained between the Jesuits of Fordham and those of Xavier.

A New Century

With the addition of a (now defunct) medical school and, in 1905, a law school, the name was changed to Fordham University in 1907 (despite the original name of the school, Fordham has never had any connection with St. John's University). The name Fordham ("village by the ford") refers to the neighborhood of the Bronx in which what is known as the Rose Hill campus of Fordham exists. This neighborhood was named either as a reference to the original settlement that was located near a shallow crossing of the Bronx River, or as a reference to Rev. John Fordham, an Anglican priest.

In 1913 the decision was made to close the College of St. Francis Xavier-- though leaving the associated Jesuit Xavier High School intact--and Fordham began opening schools in Manhattan once again, then at the Woolworth Building in the Financial District (the tallest building in the world at the time). Due to the ornate lobby of this skyscraper, the students soon began referring to it as the "marble campus" of Fordham in contrast to the rural nature of the Rose Hill campus. Various colleges flourished at the Woolworth Building over the years, including Fordham College–Manhattan Division, the College of Business Administration, and the Undergraduate School of Education. In the midst of World War II, Fordham moved its schools to a new location a few blocks north of City Hall at 302 Broadway. In the years following World War II, Fordham in Manhattan flourished, and the University was soon looking for a larger space to house its Manhattan schools.

A New Campus at Lincoln Center

Fordham's great opportunity came in the mid-1950s when it was invited to be part of the Lincoln Square Renewal Project which sought to replace substandard housing on the city's west side with a new performing arts complex that would become known as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Fordham was the first of the city's institutions involved in the project to fully sign on, purchasing most of the property from West 60th Street to West 62nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues. Part of the opening sequence of the movie West Side Story (the story was set in the neighborhood) was filmed on Fordham's property before construction began, and in 1961 Fordham's Law School was the first building to open in the Lincoln Square Renewal Project. Later the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, and the Juilliard School would join Fordham in the neighborhood as part of this project. As work on Fordham's Leon Lowenstein Building progressed, the University decided to phase out the various undergraduate colleges it conducted at 302 Broadway and replace them with a new school, "The Liberal Arts College." In January of 1969, its second semester of operation, the new college moved into its permanent home in the Lowenstein Building at the Lincoln Center campus.

Since its opening in 1968, the school's name has changed from "The Liberal Arts College" to "The College at Lincoln Center" and in 1996 to Fordham College at Lincoln Center. In 1993, a twenty-story 850-bed residence hall was added to the campus, along with other campus improvements. Over the last thirty-five years the college has had a remarkable record of achievement, including alumni who have gone on to outstanding careers as stars of stage and screen, as writers and producers, as financial and business leaders, as practitioners of law and medicine, and as political and civic leaders.

Marymount College Is Assumed

Marymount College, an independent women's college founded in 1907 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (R.S.H.M.), steeped in financial hardship for over two decades, was consolidated into Fordham University in December of 2000.

In October of 2005, the University's Board of Trustees declared that the Marymount College would be phased out of the Institution by June 2007. The campus at Tarrytown, instead, will become home to Fordham's Graduate School of Religious Education and no longer an undergraduate college. Officials cited financial infeasibility as the cause of the school’s elimination.

Organization

Fordham University is organized into eleven schools, five undergraduate schools and six graduate and professional schools. They reside on the two major campuses in New York City (Rose Hill and Lincoln Center) and the two in Westchester county (Marymount and the Louis Calder Center).

Keating Hall with Edwards Parade in the foreground, Rose Hill

Undergraduate schools:

  • Fordham College at Rose Hill (1841)
  • College of Business Administration (1920)
  • Fordham College at Lincoln Center (1968)
  • Marymount College of Fordham University (1907)
  • Fordham College of Liberal Studies (1944)

Graduate schools:

  • Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1916)
  • Graduate School of Business Administration (1969)
  • Graduate School of Education (1916)
  • School of Law (1905)
  • Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (1969)
  • Graduate School of Social Service (1916)

Campuses

Fordham residential campuses are at Rose Hill in the Bronx, Lincoln Center in Manhattan and Tarrytown in Weschester County, along with a biological field station in Armonk, New York and a Graduate School of Business in Beijing, China. The University's Ram Van service provides transportation between the Rose Hill, Lincoln Center, and Marymount campuses.

The front of the Leon Lowenstein Building at the Lincoln Center Campus.

Rose Hill

Rose Hill, Fordham's original campus, was established in 1841. Located on 85 magnificent acres in the north Bronx, it is among the largest "green campuses" in New York City. The campus is bordered by the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, and the famous "Little Italy of the Bronx" on Arthur Avenue. Rose Hill's traditional collegiate Gothic architecture, cobble-stone streets and green expanses of lawn have been used as settings in a number of feature films over the years. Rose Hill is also home to Fordham's three residential colleges; O'Hare Hall, Tierney Hall, and Queen's Court with its famous Bishop's Lounge. About 6,284 undergraduates and graduates attend, with 3,143 in residence.

Lincoln Center

The Lincoln Center Campus, established in 1961, occupies the area from West 60th Street to West 62nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, in the cultural heart of Manhattan. Across the street is one of the world's great cultural centers, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; nearby are Central Park, Broadway, and Columbus Circle. Located on 8 landscaped acres, about 8,000 professional and undergraduate students attend, with approximately 853 in residence in apartment-style housing. The Lincoln Center Campus currently consists of Lowenstein Hall, the Law School Building, the Quinn Library and McMahon Hall dormitory. There are plans to add 2.378 million square feet to the campus including a new student center, library, law school building, classroom/office space and two dormitories all centered on a 1.5 acre plaza.

Tarrytown

The 25-acre Tarrytown Campus was officially established in 2002 when Marymount College consolidated with Fordham. It is located 25 miles north of New York City in suburban Westchester County, New York.

Louis Calder Center

The Louis Calder Center is Fordham's biological field station for ecological research and environmental education. Located 30 miles north of New York City in Armonk, New York, it is the only full-time ecological research field station in the New York metropolitan area. The station consists of 113 forested acres with a 10-acre lake and 19 buildings, which are used for laboratory and office space, educational programs, equipment storage, and residences. The station's state-of-the-art equipment, research library, greenhouses, and housing are available for research and educational programs for students, faculty, and visiting scientists.

Beijing, China

Fordham's Beijing Campus, founded in 1998, is the site of the Beijing International MBA Program (BiMBA), which enrolls over 400 students a year in traditional part-time and full-time MBA programs and in Executive MBA (EMBA) programs.

Libraries

Fordham University's main library is The Walsh Family Library, which opened in 1997, and is located at the Rose Hill campus. In its 2004 edition of The Best 351 Colleges, the Princeton Review ranked Fordham’s William D. Walsh Family Library fifth in the country. The Gerald M. Quinn Library at Lincoln Center, The Fordham Law School Library and the Gloria Laines Library in Marymount are Fordham's other libraries.

Fordham University Libraries own more than 2 million volumes, subscribe to more than 15,000 periodicals, and are a depository for United States government documents. In addition, Fordham provides access to more than 20,000 full-text books online, 19,000 online journals, and 44,000 online United States government documents. The libraries also own many special collections of rare books and manuscripts covering a variety of subjects including Americana, Jesuitica, the French Revolution, and Criminology.

Fordham tradition

The Great Seal

The Great Seal of Fordham University bears the coat of arms of the Society of Jesus at the center. The shield bears the Greek letters of the name Jesus, IHS, with the cross resting in the horizontal line of the letter H, three nails beneath, all in gold in a field framed in maroon, the color of the University, with silver fleurs-de-lis on the edge of the maroon frame. Around the shield, a scroll with the University's motto in latin, Sapienta et Doctrina (Wisdom and Learning), is etched. The scroll rests of a field in which tongues of fire are displayed, recalling the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of Wisdom that marked the first Pentecost. A laurel above the shield has engraved the names of the disciplines that were taught when the school was granted university status in 1907: arts, science, philosophy, medicine, and law. Surrounding the entire seal is a heraldic belt, which has engraved the name of the school in latin, Universitas Fordhamensis, and year of foundation.[2]

Fordham Maroon

There is as much myth as there is truth surrounding the history of Fordham's college color: Maroon was not the original color, Magenta was. Magenta was used on the uniforms of Fordham's "base-ball nines." Magenta was also used by Fordham's archrival, Harvard.[3]

Both institutions claimed prior right to use of magenta, and neither institution was willing to make concessions. Since it was "improper" for two schools to be wearing the same colors, the matter was to be settled by a series of baseball games. The winning team could lay claim to magenta. The losing team would have to find another color. Fordham won, but Harvard reneged on its promise. [4]

That was the situation in 1874 when the student body gathered at the college to meet Rev. William Gockeln, S. J., the newly installed College president. One of the matters discussed at this historic meeting was that of choosing an official college color that would belong to Fordham and Fordham alone. With matters at a standstill, Stephen Wall '75, suggested maroon, a color not widely used at the time.[5]>

In a letter that Wall subsequently wrote to the editors of the Fordham Monthly in 1907, he stated, "I was asked what maroon was and the only way I could explain it was that it looked something like claret wine with the sun shining through it, but I said that, if I was given time, I would produce a piece of maroon ribbon. So I was accorded the privilege, and I wrote to my sister to send me a piece of maroon ribbon and velvet. These samples came in due course and were submitted to the committee. It received the unanimous approval of the committee, was adopted and has been the color that has carried Fordham through many a victory." [6]

An ironic footnote: Harvard also stopped using magenta in favor of crimson.[7]

The Ram

The ram evolved into Fordham's mascot and symbol from a slightly vulgar cheer that Fordham fans sang during a 1893 football game against the Military Academy at West Point. The students began cheering "One-damn, two-damn, three-damn...Fordham!" The song was an instant hit but "damn" was sanitized to "Ram" to conform to the university's image (Schroth 2002:107).

The Victory Bell

The "Victory Bell", which is mounted outside the Rose Hill Gym, is from the Japanese aircraft carrier Junyo. According to the plaque below the bell, it was recovered near Saipan where it was "silenced by an aerial Bomb." It was given to Fordham as a gift by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz "as a Memorial to Our Dear Young Dead of World War II." It was blessed by Cardinal Spellman, and "was first rung at Fordham by the President of the United States, the Honorable Harry S. Truman on May 11, 1946, the Charter Centenary of the University." It is rung by each Fordham senior player after victorious home football games and its ringing also marks the start of the commencement ceremonies each May. A small group of students rang the bell on the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor in honor of the war dead.

The main entrance to the Rose Hill campus during the winter

The Rose Hill Gym

The men's and women's basketball teams along with the volleyball squad, play in the Rose Hill Gym. The 3,200 seat gym opened on January 16, 1925 and was one of the largest on-campus facilities at the time it was built, earning the nickname "The Prairie" because of its large floor space. The arena has been in continuous use by Fordham's basketball teams since its opening with the exception of the World War II years, when it was used for a barracks. The Rose Hill Gym has been the site of many legendary college and high school basketball games including Kareem Abdul Jabbar's final high school game and the 1988 Tolentine-Archbishop Molloy Catholic High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) Championship game, billed by New York Newsday as the "Best High School Game of the '80s." The Rose Hill Gym continues to host the CHSAA Championships annually.

School Song

Fordham's School Song is "Alma Mater Fordham":

O Alma Mater Fordham, How mighty is thy power
to link our hearts to thee in love that grows with every hour.
Thy winding elms, Thy hallowed halls.
O Fordham alma Mater, what mem'ries each recalls.
O Alma Mater Fordham while yet thy life blood starts
Shined by thy sacred image within thy hearts of hearts.
And in the years That ought to be.
In the years that are to be may life and live be true to me.
O Fordham alma Mater, as I am true to thee.[8]

University Songs

"The Ram" as sung by the College at Rose Hill Glee Club

"The Ram", instrumental, as played by the University Band

"Fordham, Alma Mater"

"Fordham Marching Song", The Fordham March

Sports

The Fordham varsity sports teams all use the nickname "Rams." Their colors are maroon and white. The Fordham Rams are members of NCAA Division I and compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference in all sports except football. In football, the Rams play in the Patriot League of NCAA Division I-AA, and were champions of that league in 2003.

File:Coffey Field.jpg
The current-day Houlihan Park at Coffey Field.

Football

In the mid-1930s, Fordham in the heart of the Bronx boasted what might have been the greatest offensive and defensive line in college history -- the "Seven Blocks of Granite." Tackle Ed Franco was a consensus All-American. So was center Alex Wojciechowicz who later became an All-Pro with Detroit and Philadelphia. Guard Vince Lombardi later became one of the greatest of pro coaches. In 1937, the team went undefeated and was ranked number three nationally. So popular was Fordham, that the Cleveland NFL franchise formed in the '30s took its nickname from the Rams of the Bronx.[9]

On December 15 1954, Fordham scratched its football program for various reasons, mainly financial. A club football team was established in 1964 (on shaky authority) and football was re-established as a varsity sport in 1970, but in Division III. Fordham joined the NCAA's Division I-AA in 1989.

Baseball

Founded in the late 1850's, the Fordham Rose Hill Baseball Club played the first ever nine-man team college baseball game on November 3, 1859 against St. Francis Xavier College.[10]

Steve Bellán, first Latin American to play Major League Baseball, started his career as a player at Fordham.[11]

There have been 56 major leaguers who have played at Fordham, including All-Star pitcher Pete Harnisch and Baseball Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch. Frisch, a star athlete in four different sports at Fordham, was known as the "Fordham Flash".[12]

Jack Coffey Field, a multisport field, is named after John "Jack" Coffey, former athletic director and baseball coach at the University. He amassed 817 wins as a baseball coach and became a popular answer to a baseball trivia question, since he is the only player to play with both Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth in the same season (1918 Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox). A renovation completed in 2005 resulted in an official renaming of the baseball portion of the field to "Houlihan Park at Jack Coffey Field".

Notable Alumni

The following list of prominent alumni is in no way comprehensive and should be deemed, at best, representative of prominent Fordham alumni.

Arts and Letters

Business

Education

Entertainment

Law, Politics, and Public Service

Media and Communications

Sports

Student Organizations and Publications

  • The Fordham Ram, officially, The Ram - Fordham University's Rose Hill Campus Student Newspaper founded in 1918.
  • The Observer, Fordham University's Award-Winning, Lincoln Center Campus based Student Newspaper

Trivia

Peter, Fisher of Men statue at Lincoln Center campus
Rose Hill gymnasium at Fordham University
  • WFUV, 90.7 FM in New York City, is Fordham University's 50,000-watt radio station. First broadcast in 1947, the station serves nearly 300,000 listeners weekly in the New York area and thousands more worldwide on the Web (wfuv.org). The station mainly has an adult album alternative format, although it does carry programs which play music from other genres, such as folk music, jazz and Celtic music.
  • Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Bells was inspired by the ringing of the bells of the University Church. His home, now located in Poe Park not far from the school, once stood on Poe Street, which is even closer, and he is known to have been friendly with the Jesuits with whom he often dined.
  • Rev. William O'Malley, a Jesuit and professor at Fordham, played Father Dyer in the 1973 film The Exorcist. In addition, scenes from the film were shot on Fordham's campus, including the language lab scene, which was filmed in Keating Hall, and the bedroom scene, which was filmed in Hughes Hall.
  • One of Fordham's dormitory buildings, Walsh Hall, was built facing the street as a condition of the loan Fordham received from New York City. If Fordham had defaulted on the loan, the city would have converted it into a housing project, however this did not occur and the building's entrance still confusingly faces the street on the edge of the Rose Hill campus instead of the interior of the campus.
  • The Rose Hill Gym is the nation's oldest gym still in use at the NCAA Division I level.
  • On September 30, 1939, Fordham participated in the world’s first televised football game. In front of the sport’s first live TV audience, the Rams defeated Waynesburg College, 34-7. The following week they lost the second ever televised game to the University of Alabama, 7-6. It was not for another month that a professional NFL game was televised.

Movies (at least partially) filmed at Fordham

Further reading

  • Fred C. Feddeck. Hale Men of Fordham: Hail!. Trafford Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1552125777
  • Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. Fordham: A History and Memoir. Jesuit Way, Chicago 2002. ISBN 0829416765
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