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DECEMBER 8, 2016 VOLUME XXXVII, ISSUE 14
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McShane Defends DACA Policy By ELIZABETH LANDRY Asst. News Editor
PHOTO COURTESTY OF AVERY BART
Ravel and Spero share a laugh in between takes of their new web series “Rachel Unraveled”.
Unraveling “Rachel Unraveled” By MORGAN STEWARD Arts & Culture Co-Editor “…I win an Emmy and it allows me to host the Emmys and then Kerry Washington presents Rachel and I with an Emmy and I stand by her side and then we do a bit and it becomes a gif,” Austin Spero, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’19, explains through laughs. Looking expectantly at his iPhone on the side table in front of him, Rachel Ravel, FCLC ’19, doesn’t miss a beat over speakerphone, immediately responding through her own muffled laughter “I get an Emmy and then I cry Emmys.” “And then I am an Emmy for Halloween,” Spero nudged in before Ravel concluded “And then we turn into Emmys.” Those who know Spero and Ravel won’t be surprised by this latenight Wednesday banter between
“ We’re tying to show the quirky realities
veering into almost the kitschy world of what it means to be 20 and want to work in entertainment and live in New York City on your own for the first time.” – the two FCLC sophomores. These two are not putting on a show—this is simply who they are. Talented actors and best friends, Spero and Ravel first met during their freshman year at Fordham and have been close friends ever since. Now, these two are finally putting their undeniable comedic chemistry to the test through “Rachel Unraveled,” a soon-to-be-released musical-satire web series that the two are creating.
AUSTIN SPERO, FCLC '19
Through lots of social media posts, a successful Kickstarter campaign, and the help of talented friends, what started off as a joke about Ravel’s life is becoming a reality. Neither Spero or Ravel originally came up with the concept for the web series—it was the subject of a long-running gag of Fordham alum Garrett Kim, FCLC ’16. “He was just joking with Rachel about if her life was a web series it would be about
a girl named Rachel and it would be called ‘Rachel Unraveled,’” Spero explained. “Yeah,” Ravel continued. “We kind of turned it into a running gag of what the skit would be like.” Now, a year later, it is actually happening. “Rachel Unraveled” is an exaggerated parody of Ravel’s actual life in the city. “We’re trying to show the quirky realities veering into the almost kitschy world of what it means to be 20 and want to work in entertainment and live in New York City on your own for the first time,” Spero said. Every title character needs a nemesis and Ravel finds hers in Austin Spatterman, the 15-year-old annoying neighbor played by Spero. “They have it out for each other ever since the great Annie debacle of 2005,” Spero explained. As for what see UNRAVELED pg. 10
Students, Professors Navigate Election Discussions By CECILE NEIDIG News Co-Editor
“It was raining. It was a gloomy, dark day,” Peter Farag, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’17, said of Wednesday, Nov. 9, the day after the 2016 Presidential Election. In what many students saw as a shocking end to the election cycle, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the next president of the United States. “You can’t return back to normal, [it] was a major shock,” Farag said. A political science major, Farag decided only to attend one of his classes that Wednesday, saying, “it fit the mood not to go” to his second class. “It was a very emotional experience,” he said of his political science class that day. “Everyone was trying to cope with it and trying to under-
stand.” “From our perspective, a man accused of sexual assault dozens of times is in the White House,” Farag continued. “He’s a man who wants to ban all Muslims, who wants to build a wall and block out Mexicans, and who calls Mexicans criminals and drug dealers. I think that happening has a profound impact on our perceived safety.” Farag said that he was appreciative that his professor discussed the results of the election in a way that allowed students to grieve and that the professor did not hide behind objectivity. “I think that was what the situation called for, I think that’s what we needed,” he said. Pre-med and psychology student Schuyler Kennedy, FCLC ’17, said that she felt she missed out on the opportunity to discuss the results of the
election. In neither of her two classes on the Thursday following the election were the results discussed. “I just didn’t spend enough time before the election thinking about what would happen if Trump actually became president because I didn’t see it as a feasible result,” she said. “So when it happened, I was so surprised and then I was immediately petrified. I was really, really scared.” “I care enormously about what my professors think,” Kennedy continued. “But I think it’s a really tricky role to play because they don’t want to exclude any students or make them feel victimized.” Kennedy thought that the best way for a professor to tackle discussing this election was to present information to their students and let them fill in the gaps for themselves. “But with something as emotionally dam-
In a move that seeks to defend and adhere to President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, President of Fordham University Joseph M. McShane, S.J. has signed two new statements of solidarity with undocumented students. These statements were made public on Nov. 30, and include more than 90 signatures of the college presidents of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities as well as over 300 more public and private institutions across the United States. McShane announced the statements to the Fordham community via email, with a personal letter preceding its text and links to a similar 2013 Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) statement and the Pomona Statement. The latter affirms the commitment of the signatory institutions to provide DACA-qualified students with “campus counseling and ministry support, through legal resources from those campuses with law schools and legal clinics, and through whatever other services we may have at our disposal.” In the email, McShane says that he has signed three documents, one in 2013 and two in Nov. 2016, to “make it clear that Fordham sees and embraces undocumented students as valued and loved members of our community, that Fordham stands with them, and that we will do all we can to be effective advocates for them.” McShane cites the example of University Founder Archbishop John Hughes, who he says was “an immigrant and the victim of prejudice and discrimination both in Ireland and in the United States.” He continues saying that the school was founded to “make it possible for the immigrants whom he served to receive an education that would both confound their enemies and enable them to take their rightful place in American society.”
aging as this election, I think it’s really important for educators to share how they feel and know that students who are victimized by this can have safe place to process this and have allies,” she said. Benjamin Dunning, Ph.D., recognized that the students in his Introduction to Queer Theory class the Wednesday after the election might be suffering from a lack of sleep and disappointment due to the results of the election and decided to make attendance optional. “The decision I made was very much specific to the context of this course, these students, this syllabus, so I wouldn’t hold up the decision I made as generalizable,” Dunning said. “I knew enough about where many of them were coming from see DISCUSSIONS pg. 2
THE STUDENT VOICE OF FORDHAM LINCOLN CENTER
see PROTECT pg. 2
OPINIONS
Financing Fordham Low-income students need support Page 6 ARTS & CULTURE
Jessica Julius Moana executive visits Fordham
Page 7 FEATURES
Susan Scafidi Fashion law prof. expands field
Page 11 SPORTS & HEALTH
Fighting Depression Effect of exercise on depression
Page 16
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December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
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McShane Vows to Protect Undocumented Students PROTECT FROM PAGE 1
McShane also said that his own immigrant ancestry brings the position of children of immigrants close to his own heart. Fordham’s Jesuit values are invoked both in the letter and the signed statement from the AJCU. “We see our work of teaching, scholarship and the formation of young minds and spirits as a sacred trust,” the AJCU Statement says. “That trust prompts us to labor for solidarity among all people, and especially with and for the poor and marginalized of our society. That trust calls us to embrace the entire human family, regardless of their immigration status – or religious allegiance.” The AJCU presidents pledge to continue working “to protect to the fullest extent of the law undocumented students on our campuses; to promote retention of the [DACA] Program; to support and stand with our students, faculty and staff regardless of their faith traditions; to preserve the religious freedoms on which our nation was founded.” It also says that they welcome statements taht inspire efforts of dialogue, conversation and reconciliation in the university and national communities. The Pomona Statement, named for the host college, is signed by over 400 public and private colleges and universities which offer to meet with U.S.
LISA SPITERI/OBSERVER ARCHIVES
Joseph M. McShane, S.J., signs statements to protect undocumented students.
leaders in support of DACA. The list remains open for additional colleges and universities to sign. This statement praises the “critical benefits of this program for our students, and [its] highly positive impacts on our institutions and communities,” saying that DACA beneficiaries have shown themselves to be “exemplary student scholars and student leaders”
who actively contribute to local communities and economies. It calls for the program to be upheld, continued and expanded as a “moral imperative and a national necessity.” DACA was first implemented in June 2012 in order to allow a two-year period of no action toward qualifying undocumented individuals who entered the U.S. before their sixteenth
birthday and were still under the age of 31 as of June 2007. To qualify, these individuals must be currently in school, a high school graduate or be honorably discharged from the military, and must not have been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor or identified as a threat to national security. President-elect Donald Trump
has denounced programs which provide opportunities to undocumented immigrants since August 2015 and said that he would rescind President Obama’s Immigration Accountability Executive Actions, which include expanding DACA and creating the Deferred Action for Parents of U.S. Citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program. His stance on immigration is a top issue to address once he takes office. Commonly referred to as DREAMers for the failed DREAM Act, which proposed a process for permanent residency, the over 725,000 DACAregistered young people brought to the US illegally by their parents do not have legal standing. Critics in the media and the Democratic Party have expressed concern that these individuals’ information could be used to remove them under a Trump administration, whose picks include tough opponents to illegal immigration such as Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach for the transition team and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general. Both McShane’s letter and the AJCU statement reference Pope Francis for inspiration, who said last year to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, “Do not be discouraged by whatever hardships you face. I ask you not to forget that, like those who came here before you, you bring many gifts to this nation.”
Classes Impacted Following the Election DISCUSSIONS FROM PAGE 1
given our conversations up to this point that I figured it was a pretty fair guess that this was a tough morning for a lot of them.” About half of the students attended Dunning’s class, where they spent the entire two-and-a-half hour period discussing the election. “It didn’t feel like we just put aside the work of the course in order to talk about the election,” Dunning continued. “It felt like we continued the work of the course in the context of what had happened.” The discussion that ensued was one that Dunning thought was difficult. Dunning, who believes that professors should not be partisan, stated that it was difficult to discuss the election given “the ways in which racism and misogyny and xenophobia have functioned such that to take a stand against those things as categorically
never acceptable has in some contexts become a partisan issue and that, as a professor, I feel an ethical imperative to push back upon.” He added that he never wants to make a student feel excluded from the conversation and has tried to facilitate the discussion in such a way that involves multiple perspectives. Lydia Culp, FCLC ’19, said that her English and Philosophical Ethics classes held the Friday following the election devoted a substantial amount of time discussing the election results. “It was assumed that we all were upset,” she said of her English class. “It was just an expression of ‘this is so terrible’ and there wasn’t really an effort to see the other side.” “I don’t really know how we got stuck with Donald Trump,” Culp continued. “But I don’t think that the way to talk about it is to engage in this form of elitism that generalizes the people on the right as bigoted, racist and morally inferior. The fact
that we’re so surprised shows we’re not listening to so many other people out there, or we’re not giving people a space where they feel they can be open about their views.” Culp went on to say that she does not think there is space at Fordham for those who disagree with the majority opinion to express their views and that professors should take a more objective stance when discussing the election. Eric Anthamatten, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, believes that the classroom is an apolitical space, but said that he does not think pure objectivity on the part of the professor is possible. Referring to a feminist writer, bell hooks’ “Engaged Pedagogy,” Anthamatten noted, “if you expect students to be vulnerable, you have to allow a bit of vulnerability, especially in a philosophy or liberal arts class.” In response to the election results, Anthamatten emailed his students to
let them know that his classes would be cancelled that Wednesday. “When I cancelled class, if I’m honest with myself, it was more of a personal response than a political response, I just couldn’t do it,” Anthamatten said. “Grief is a proper patriotic emotion.” Both Anthamatten and Dunning felt that a portion of their students were appreciative of their respective decisions regarding their classes for Wednesday. Anthamatten noted that he wants to be sensitive to others’ perspectives and he “tak[es] seriously the responsibility of authority.” He encourages his students to think critically—which, he asserts, in itself becomes political. So too does logic, truth and facts. “To say this person is a sexist or to say he’s racist, is not a political statement, it’s just a fact,” he said. “I try to not make it explicit but it’s hard not to when it’s just so egregious, especially in a philosophy class,” An-
thamatten continued. He thought it would be irresponsible for him, as a philosophy professor talking about human nature, virtue and the evil of racism, to not point to these facts. What is responsible, he said, is to situate the discussion within the course and to be self-critical of the echo-chambers in which we exist— the bubbles of New York, of Manhattan or of a private Jesuit University. He went on to say that if what we are working toward is more knowledge, more wisdom and a better world, these bubbles are a threat to that. “And that’s not, to me, at all political. I think there’s a duty and responsibility for a professor to demand that.” The newspapers at Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, Duke and University of Pennsylvania reported some professors at their institutions cancelled classes, postponed assignment deadlines and midterm exams, or adjusted the agenda of classes to discuss the election.
Dining Services Looks Back on Aramark’s First Semester By STEPHAN KOZUB News Co-Editor
At 10 p.m. on June 30, Sodexo ceased operations at Fordham University. By 7 a.m. the next morning, Aramark was officially in place as the university’s dining service provider. Since then, individuals involved with the transition have said that dining service operations on campus have improved and that the transition went smoothly. “I think that it has gone better than expected,” Yint Hmu, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’17 and chair of the United Student Government (USG) Dining Services Committee, said. “I was expecting a bumpier transition and they adapted very quickly to Lincoln Center’s atmosphere, and part of that I believe was due to the numerous meetings we had after Aramark was chosen.” Giving the example of the expanded options in the Ram Cafe this semester, Hmu also noted that Aramark has been “very receptive” and that “the response rate to any complaint is very quick” compared to Sodexo. “Overall, I’d say that they’re a much better company to work with on the perspective of the students and
ELIZABETH LANDRY/THE OBSERVER
The Ram Cafe underwent changes with the transition to Aramark.
giving feedback,” he said. Other changes that Aramark has implemented include the lengthening of hours of operation for the Ram Cafe on Fridays and the reintroduction of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream into the dining venue, which was a popular product under Sodexo. Additionally, Aramark announced in the USG Dining Services Committee meeting on Dec. 1 that they would be reintroducing the to-go Tupperware containers in the Community Dining Hall, a program originally facilitated by Sodexo but
not retained during the transition. This program allows students to purchase a reusable Tupperware container from Aramark to take dining hall food to go. At the committee meeting, representatives from Aramark said that the sturdy green containers would cost approximately $5. All of the dining locations have also received A’s from the New York City Department of Health. “No small task,” Dining Services Contract Liaison Deming Yaun said. “[It’s] all new management and the New York City Department of Health is very
stringent with us so it’s great.” “But Aramark has demonstrated a sincerely committed approach to meeting the needs that we put out there and reacted positively to any amounts of feedback that they have been given and made the changes,” he said. “The team works with an incredibly positive perspective and it’s made it easier for us to discuss issues with them, go back and forth, and get to where we need to be.” Both Yaun and Hmu, however, noted that there are still changes and adjustments that need to be made. “One thing is just getting them to improve on their meal timings,” Hmu said. “And what I mean by that is...to just make it a much more efficient system. And I think it will be addressed in time, because they are still transitioning into this space and adjusting and by probably next semester, I hope that we will have much more efficient dining options.” Yaun said that there’s “fine tuning that needs to happen,” pointing to a discussion at the Dec. 1 Dining Services Committee meeting on difficulties that members of the Fordham community have experienced with finding and identifying gluten-free options at dining venues. “That en-
tire gluten-free discussion needs to be resolved so that people on these diets can have select choices and find them easily,” Yaun said. “Those types of things need to happen.” He also noted that there are no major changes planned or expected for next semester. Every hourly employee who wanted to stay at Fordham was offered a position except for two individuals who did not pass background checks, according to Yaun. “They kept almost all of the employees and you see the same old familiar faces who smile at you, who know you by name,” Hmu said. “Their performance is just so much better, and that’s when you realize that it was not the employees but the corporation that we were having issues with.” He also encouraged students to give their feedback to USG so that they can be addressed in the monthly Dining Services Committee meetings. “We have these committee meetings to advocate for you and your dining options,” he said. “So if something is not up to par, if you think something needs improvement, let us know and we’ll work with Aramark to improve it.”
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News
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Student Organizations Rally for Standing Rock By ELIZABETH LANDRY Asst. News Editor
Throughout the month of November, student organizations at Fordham’s Lincoln Center (FLC) campus gathered in solidarity with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests taking place on Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota. Not only did students participate in sharing information directly from protesters on social media, but also held a meditation for awareness and a bake sale to benefit protesters’ winter preparations. The source of the dispute is the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s assertion that crude oil pipeline company Dakota Access’s $3.8 billion construction plans threaten historically sacred lands and burial sites now possessed by the U.S. government. They also argue that it has the potential to devastate the main water sources for the reservation’s communities and agriculture. Beginning in late August, protesters—or “water protectors”—have protested the pipeline, entering the site during construction, peacefully demonstrating outside of the site and setting up a camp that now houses thousands of them. Protesters have faced resistance from the company and the state since early September, including the documented use of attack dogs by private security and clashes with local and state police. Despite a dearth of mainstream media coverage for much of the protest’s duration, calls for the federal government to step in resulted in the Dec. 4 announcement by the Army Corps of Engineers that an easement necessary to the construction plan will not be granted, which effectively grounds the project. Months of largely social
ELIZABETH LANDRY/THE OBSERVER
Hunter Blas speaks at the teach-in hosted by the students of the DDCSJ.
media-driven organizing, however, elicited that response. During the last days of October, a rumor circulated across social media suggested that Standing Rock police were using Facebook checkins to track activists protesting the pipeline. It read, in part: “Water Protectors [sic] are calling on EVERYONE to check-in at [SR], ND to overwhelm and confuse them. This is concrete action that can protect people putting their bodies and well-beings [sic] on the line that we can do without leaving our homes.” Many Fordham Lincoln Center (FLC) students shared this mes-
sage on their Facebook pages, joining more than 1.5 million reported check-ins in a daylong period. Queer and Indigenous Studies professor Zein Murib, who sees the “#NoDAPL” social media contingent of Standing Rock protests as a dynamic example of contemporary progressive activism, said that the appeal of the question of land struggle involved at Standing Rock is natural for an FLC student to empathize with. “The campus at [FLC] replaced a housing development that had been here before and part of ‘cleaning up’ that area of town was displac-
ing those people and creating Lincoln Center, and giving part of that land to Fordham University,” Murib said. “I think the students are aware of the politics and so there is, I imagine, a connection to land struggle there.” She also brought the issue into the context of settler colonialism when comparing recent protests in New York City with the Standing Rock demonstrations. “You know, we want voting rights or the right to influence government in these ways,” she said. “What they’re asking for is sovereignty. They’re saying, this is our land, and that is being totally violated by corporations, by the Canadian government, by the U.S. government.” Although a spokeswoman of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department released a statement denying the use of the check-ins to track protesters, the post’s popularity showed that many on social media were willing to voice support. At FLC, students at the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice (DDCSJ) were putting together a plan to bring awareness of the issue to more of the community. “We’re looking at doing a teach-in next spring, pulling in resources from outside [the school] who really know about this issue, and bringing it to campus,” said DDCSJ social justice leader Hunter Blas, FCLC ’17. On Nov. 17 DDCSJ held an “intentional meditation” on the plaza during the activity block. A small group came and listened to prepared information regarding the history of US-Native American Indian legal relations and the protest situation, and participated in a short meditation led by Associate Coordinator at FLC Katheryn Crawford. “We are all part of this earth, we
are all connected to Mother Earth and so we have to be in solidarity and really stand to allow that to happen,” Crawford intoned. “To be in connection, even if we are in New York City, we really want to stand and be, in intention and in prayer and in thoughts, for the water protectors of Standing Rock.” Crawford said afterward, “I think it’s a really great opportunity especially going into Thanksgiving, to really get people interested and to really think about us as a community holding space for Standing Rock.” Two weeks later, Global Outreach (GO!) Lincoln Center held bake sale tables on the indoor plaza where all proceeds would be donated to “assisting Standing Rock and the people’s needs.” Not only were donations of any amount accepted, but small cards were made with online resources and links for more information on how to aid protesters. GO! President Kyndal Jackson, FCLC ’17, and Vice President Caroline Grondahl, FCLC ’17, were among the students who spent time at the tables. “It’s so important that we get the word out to students who might not know about this,” Jackson said. “We want people to know that we are with the water protectors and how they can get involved as well.” Many students stopped by the table throughout the day, raising almost $400 in donations. As of Dec. 4, many news outlets reported that the Army Corps of Engineers had announced it would look for an alternate route for the pipeline, drawing both cheers and doubt from protesters and activists. The camp community will remain, and their lead organizer has asked supporters to continue to put pressure on the federal government.
Opinions
Opinions Editor John McCullough - jmcculloughiii@fordham.edu
STAFF EDITORIAL
O
the
DO NOT SIT STILL FOR STANDING ROCK
n Dec. 4, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that they would not permit the Dakota Access Pipeline to pass through the sacred land of the Standing Rock Sioux. The decision was celebrated by tribal leaders and activists, who have spent months fighting the incursions of the construction company on sacred burial grounds and the potential environmental impact of the pipeline on their water, soil and livelihoods. Though we celebrate the decision, it is important to remember that this battle is not over. For one, Dakota Access can still appeal the decision and resume construction. The Army Corps of Engineers’ official statement only stressed a “need to explore [an] alternate route.” According to Reuters, both Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco vow that they will see the pipeline through to completion. All of these caveats mean that a pipeline could
still be constructed remarkably close to the Missouri River. In the event of a spill, this location could prove environmentally disastrous; the river and its tributaries cover a sizable portion of the country.
“The fight is far from over. It is dangerous to assume that there is no longer a need to support the protesters.” The fight is far from over. It is dangerous to assume that there is no longer a need to support the protesters. To forget about Standing Rock is to play into the hands of oil executives who still see an opportunity to increase their wealth at the expense of the sacred lands of the Dakota Indians. To turn our backs on this struggle is to forget the
December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
violence employed by those in power against protesters and indigenous activists. It is to dismiss the rubber bullets, the water cannons used in 20-degree weather and the purposeful, months-long silencing of the conflict. Supporters of the protesters should not stand down just becof the Dec. 4 decision. We must continue to show solidarity with the Standing Rock Tribe’s cause and fight for the sovereignty of the Dakota Indians against the intrusion of the oil companies and the dismissal of indigenous peoples’ rights by both the State of North Dakota and the U.S. government. Not fighting for this cause would be to betray the interests of a native people that has been disenfranchised and wronged for far too long. We ask our readers to actively keep an eye on the events in North Dakota. Otherwise, premature celebration could lead to the movement’s doom.
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Fordham Needs To Help Its Low-Income Students BESSIE RUBINSTEIN Contributing Writer
We romanticize being broke in college. Cups of ramen in dorm rooms eaten with stolen dining hall silverware—it’s an image passed from parent to child, older sibling to younger sibling. But it misses reality. Being broke—truly broke—in college isn’t cute. It’s not a caricature. It’s having an anxiety attack on the rare occasion that you buy a cup of coffee, because your single mom’s two jobs are supposed to put you through school, not to get you a latte. Every student pretends to be broke; joking about having 20 bucks to get you through the next two weeks is a rite of passage. But the kids that are really broke—kids in situations like mine or worse, go through their schooling with a horrific burden. It’s become an accepted reality that university tuition is out of control. We see financial strain as a practically unavoidable sacrifice of higher education. It’s a problem, but we see it as a flaw in America’s schooling system rather the individual universities. This isn’t the case with Fordham. Our financial aid practices are actually tied to our philosophies as a Jesuit school; by priding ourself on our focus on social awareness and activism, by championing Saint Ignatius, we hold ourself to a higher standard with regard to helping low-income students go to school. Pell Grants, as defined by the Office of Federal Student Aid, “provide need-based grants to low-income undergraduates to promote access to postsecondary education.” As of this year, a student in need could get as much as $23,260. In The New York Times’ study “Top Colleges Doing the Most for Low-Income Students,” which ranked the percentages of students receiving Pell Grants, Fordham ranked number 164 out
TAVY WU/THE OBSERVER
Many low-income students still struggle with tuition payments and Fordham needs to do more to assist them.
of 179. Only 14% of our students graduate with the help of these endowments. The maximum family income allowing a student to receive Pell money is $50,000 a year, but the government allocates most funds to students whose families earn less than $20,000. The New York Times’ study suggests that 86 percent of our students come from families earning at least $20,000 annually. For a school with “175 Years of Service” emblazoned across its website, this lack of socioeconomic diversity is contradictory. The founder
of the Jesuit faith, Saint Ignatius, envisioned his schools as accessible to “everybody, poor and rich.” We have plenty of programs focused on bettering the city—blood drives, Urban Plunge and the National Day of Service, but we’re not promoting one of the main pillars of the Jesuit religion. And we’re not alone. Fordham isn’t the only Jesuit institution that doesn’t practice what it literally preaches; none of Fordham’s Jesuit counterparts, including Boston College and Georgetown, ranked above number 85 on The New York Times’
list. This contradiction isn’t obvious if you look at our website: “85% of students receive financial aid,” it boasts. But this is an empty statistic that fails to include how much and what kind of money we award students. 1,000 a year or 10,000 a year? Merit or need-based? This number doesn’t inform. Rather, it adds to the confusion and lack of transparency surrounding our financial aid policies. Fordham could overlook this problem, or we could seize this op-
portunity to lead by example. Plenty of initiatives exist to help the poor and struggling in our city, but it’s time to work from the inside out. 21st century Jesuit schools must focus on serving their own before they can serve their communities— a student body comprised of the upper middle class and above is an antiquated notion. If we can’t make reforms to combat skyrocketing tuition and an ever-increasing wage gap, it’s the beginning of the end of 175 years of service.
Detecting Fake News: Our Newest Responsibility STEPHAN KOZUB News Co-Editor
Since Donald Trump went from being Republican Party Nominee to President-elect, those who saw his victory as a long shot have been trying to figure out how he pulled his electoral college rabbit out of his political magician’s hat. Journalists and scholars alike have suggested that he won the election because of trade and the Democratic Party’s inability to energize blue-collar white voters. Others, however, have pointed to another issue: the prominence of fake news on social media. New York Magazine was one of the first publications to publish the theory after the election. Since then, the theory has grown, leading prominent figures such as President Barack Obama to criticize social media platforms such as Facebook for enabling the dissemination of fake news. While these attacks have spurred action from both Google and Facebook, a recent article by the Washington Post reveals the disturbing extent of this information debacle. On Nov. 24, Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg published an article that targeted a source other than Facebook for the circulation of fake news: Russia. In it, Timberg reports that the “flood of ‘fake news’” was supported by “a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American
democracy.” There was, however, a hidden but significant problem with the article that has led sources such as The Intercept and Rolling Stone to call it “disgraceful” as well as “shameful and disgusting,” respectively. In the article, Timberg cites a seemingly reputable and professional source called PropOrNot, which is simply described as “a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds.” Upon closer investigation, however, PropOrNot is quickly revealed to be not quite what it seems. The organization’s Twitter account alone is something to behold. Their first tweet on Nov. 5 is “Hello world - PropOrNot is live! Let’s do this =).” Yes, that is a typed-out smiley face emoji. On Nov. 23, it tweeted out that a Buzzfeed article about fake news was “valuable but insufficient. We need opt-out editorial anti-bulls**t immune systems.” It also tweeted out messages like “aww, wook at all the angwy Putinists, trying to change the subject - they’re so vewwy angwy” and “Fascists. Straight up muthaf**kin’ fascists. That’s what we’re up against,” both of which have since been deleted. To make matters worse, the organization has refused to reveal the names of any of its members and has published “The List,” a collection of sites that “reliably echo Russian propaganda.” On the list, however, are alternative news sites that are widely seen as reputable such as the Drudge Report, Truthout, Naked Capitalism, Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. Additionally, as The Intercept
discovered, many of the individuals that the organization referred to as “allied” with it had no connection to the group whatsoever. Timberg’s reporting is deeply problematic because through his lazy reporting, he only contributes to the issue of fake news dissemination. Additionally, he sets a poor standard and compromises the reputability of the Washington Post, one of the most historically significant news organizations in the United States. This development demands that people and especially students step up their game when it comes to reading and circulating news stories. As a study reported by NPR found, students demonstrate a general inability to detect biases and outright misinformation in articles they read online. College students specifically did not suspect biases in tweets from activist groups and could not identify the difference between mainstream and fringe sources, according to the study. These findings show that millennials need to do a better job of critically analyzing the information they consume on a regular basis. It may require extra effort, but the extra caution taken when digesting a media diet is essential. Consuming myriad sources with strong biases and questionable claims will do nothing but satiate a hunger for information with empty words. Luckily, media critics such as those working for On The Media have already begun to compile guides to detect fake news. The pitfall of this new necessity for skepticism in media circulation, however, is that it runs the risk of ignoring and disregarding margin-
alized populations. In situations such as the demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline, some information is circulated solely by alternative and activist sites. Due to the encouragement of hyper skepticism of stories, however, the biases of these sites may seem to disqualify their reporting from being seen as reputable. When action in support of marginalized populations depends partly upon people outside of their communities recognizing the
sides of an issue does raise the question of false-equivalency in media. Steps need to be taken, however, to combat inaccuracy in reporting and fake news because misinformation only serves to hurt the communities that consume it. Fake news has also started to have violent consequences. After reading fake news stories circulated on social media alleging that Hillary Clinton was running a child-abuse ring in collaboration with a Washington
As a result of these nuances, it depends upon people reading and digesting information to critique the news they are being fed for its fairness and especially its accuracy.
struggles and mistreatments they are encountering, this skepticism of media runs the risk of only contributing to the problem. As a result of these nuances, it depends upon people reading and digesting information to critique the news they are being fed for its fairness and especially its accuracy. This responsibility, however, does not fall solely to media consumers. Journalists need to do a better job of reporting on all sides of issues and taking the extra steps to ensure the accuracy of their reporting. The world does not need another incident like Timberg’s citation of PropOrNot or Rolling Stone’s “A Rape on Campus,” which is probably the most sensational case of inaccurate reporting in recent history. Encouraging reporting on all
D.C. area pizzeria, a North Carolina man fired an AR-15 in the restaurant. Although he was arrested and no one was injured, the ability of fake news to inspire such actions is disturbing. These recent events and developments have led Oxford Dictionary to chose “post-truth” as its word of the year. The notion of a “post-truth” world should bother us. We should not want to live in circumstances “in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion that appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Knowledge and the power of factual information is what allows us to defend ourselves and to fight for the causes of others. Not only would letting go of that power be the nail in the coffin of our personal freedoms, that power is the very reason the first amendment exists.
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Opinions
December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
www.fordhamobserver.com
The Holidays Need Inclusivity and Representation JORDAN MELTZER Contributing Writer
Fordham University is located in a notably liberal area: the northeast. Hence, people at this school are generally used to the inclusivity of the diverse population in our area. New Yorkers, for instance, took a stand when native Texan and presidential candidate Ted Cruz made anti-Semitic remarks about “New York values.” In New York City, most people are at least supportive of, if not also educated about, the many cultures that call this city home. But this is a jaded perspective. In the United States as a whole, many people are ignorant, whether blissfully or willfully, of important aspects of numerous cultures, including their holidays. Google Trends, which measures the popularity of terms entered into the search engine, is often a good indicator of how frequently people are thinking about a subject. Within the parameters of the United States; the terms “Christmas,” “Kwanzaa,” “Hanukkah,” “Yule,” and “Omisoka;” and the “holiday season” of 2015, which I entered as Nov. 28 to Jan. 6, I came up with some interesting statistics. The peak numbers were 100 searches for Christmas, 2 for Hanukkah, 1 for Kwanzaa and Yule, and 0 for Omisoka. Christmas averaged at 20; the others all averaged at 0. The numbers are distributed much more equally when “Christmas” is removed. Fordham students seem to have a better grasp on multicultural holidays. In a survey I conducted among 26 Fordham students, I
BROOKE PARRETT/THE OBSERVER
The holiday season should be a time of joy for people of all cultures.
found that all of them had heard of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, while two had heard of Yule
and one had heard of Omisoka. To stray from statistics and focus more on personal experience,
I have always been overwhelmed with the Christmas experience in December. Even going to school in a significantly Jewish town, Christmas was always the holiday in the forefront. Additionally, the greeting I have most commonly heard from people, both in casual conversation and more formal situations, is “Merry Christmas,” with “happy holidays” only coming from cashiers and the like. I include all this information to enforce a point: diversity is not represented as well as it should be, and it shows. As evidenced by the survey I conducted, Fordham students are aware of the underrepresentation that is happening here and across the country. One student — Annalee Tominelli, FCLC ‘20 — described the lack of equal representation: “People forget that there is no established religion or culture, and we should embrace the melting pot more than we do.” It truly is a shame that several cultures’ holidays are not given the proper respect they deserve. While I am aware that Christianity is the most populous religion in the United States, that does not mean that its holiday is the only one that matters. After all, the term “holiday season” has risen to prominence for a reason: inclusivity of all holidays is important. We often hear about how important representation is, and the holiday season is a vital time for the enforcement of this notion. Now, while I recognize that pointing out a leak in the ceiling is a good first step, it does not help unless the leak is fixed. So, that begs the question: what are the appropriate steps for celebrating the holidays and including as many cultures as possible?
The first step is to forget “Merry Christmas,” unless you are talking to someone you know is Christian, and instead convert to “happy holidays.” It is not a monumental change, and it is one we all can make. We must set the example and then encourage others to use the same phrase. It spreads positivity that is appropriate during this cheerful time of year and avoids an uncomfortable exchange with someone who is not Christian. The second step is to advocate for representation in public places. Starbucks is doing this right: their “Red Holiday Cups” do not include any religious paraphernalia, promoting equality of all cultures. But not all places achieve this inclusiveness in their decorations. If a store is having a Christmas sale, you can ask the owner personally to rename the promotion a “holiday sale.” Little things like this go a long way for people who feel uncomfortable with the idea of Christmas being promoted over their culture’s holiday. Lastly, you should reach out to friends and family and let them know of your support. Ask your Japanese friend if he is celebrating Omisoka. Tell your Pagan friend that you hope they have a fantastic Yule. Get your Jewish friend a Hanukkah present. You get the idea. Like I said, small actions can have a tremendous impact. The holidays are supposed to be about spreading joy and positivity. After all, it is the “most wonderful time of the year” and the “happiest season of all.” Restricting the season to just one holiday is detrimental to the season’s goal. Make sure everyone in your life is happy this year by letting them know their holiday is valid.
Liberals Can’t Neglect Rural Americans and Succeed JOSH ANTHONY Contributing Writer
I am going to argue for something controversial: liberal America shares equal blame with conservative America for the ascendance of Donald Trump. Liberal Americans are predominantly city dwellers. They are, as a group, younger, more ethnically diverse and more likely to be gay or non-binary. They are more likely to abhor bigotry and cultural slurs. That is, with one notable exception. Redneck. Hick. Trailer trash. White trash. These pejoratives dominated discussion about Trump’s election as blame was placed on the white working class. These pejoratives don’t refer to white people as a whole, but in particular to poor whites, particularly poor whites outside of cities, and particularly poor whites in the south and center of the country. I’m not saying that all minorities hate white people; far from it. Anecdotally, I find that it is white city dwellers that seem to hate their rural counterparts the most viciously. I remember in middle school, a girl said she could never respect our small-town Kentuckyborn teacher because of her accent. Everyone agreed. Let me not be misconstrued; racism and bigotry exist in disproportionate number in the countryside. But so do abject poverty and rising unemployment; so does rampant opiate and methamphetamine addiction; hope and help, in large effect, do not. Manufacturing jobs are leaving the country, and they’re not coming back. Many people who work those jobs rage about industrial plants crossing the border and blame immigrants and those in other countries for stealing their
BOB JAGENDORF/FLICKR
White liberals living in cities often neglect the working class’ degradation in areas like the Rust Belt.
jobs. Manufacturing in America is dying, but the people who fed their families by working industrial labor are very much alive. Every summer, I go to the town where my dad was born, in central Alabama. Every year I go, the dirtier it gets and the more sadness I see on people’s faces. I also coincidentally see more Hispanics. I am well aware that a rising Hispanic population is not to blame for worsening economic conditions; but if my whole world was that small town in central Alabama, would I not think that these two factors are related? When rural Americans blame Mexican immigration for the job crisis, urban liberals don’t respond by describing the complex global economic conditions that created the job crisis. Instead, they say something much simpler and emotionally satisfying: “you’re racist.” It is the most infuriating
thing for country people to hear. It’s telling them that their opinions don’t matter because they’re stupid and backwards, that they no longer have a place in this country. Few of these people will ever vote Democrat, because the Democrats fight for the city dwellers and their interests, and thus vote Republican. They watch Fox News, which keeps their viewers watching by aggrandizing them and demonizing their enemies. It calls them the heart of America and blames newcomers with foreign ideas for their woes. It confirms their feeling that everyone else in the world is against them, and reinforces the racism in the darkest part of rural America by blaming minorities for the nation’s ills. It preaches that conservative economics are the only way to fix the economy and anything else is the government stealing the little they have left. Republican candidates
don’t fit their policies to their working class constituency as much as they fit their working class constituency to their policies. These policies, invariably, help the rich at the expense of the poor. It’s the greatest con in history. The Bush years and the ensuing recession shook everything up. The government’s approval ratings dipped dramatically. Antiestablishment sentiment grew among both conservatives and liberals, as well as country folk and city dwellers. All of these concerns lead back to the economic inequality that is an inescapable feature of America. Liberals, however, got thrown a bone: Barack Obama. Under our first black President the recession slowly receded, but the wealth gap remained. Especially in rural America, prospects improved little. With antiestablishment liberals mostly satisfied (remember in 2009, when white
liberals were saying racism is dead?) it drifted away, but the antiestablishment right only grew. It capitalized on the racist sentiment created by years of Republican rhetoric and Fox News propaganda. Trump’s vow to “Make America Great Again” isn’t as radical to many in the white working class as it seems, at least at first. All they need to call America great again is their jobs back. Unfortunately, the white working class has been told for a generation that all their problems are because of the Democrats conspiring against them to benefit minorities. Liberals have done nothing but confirm this notion. Hillary Clinton, who responded to Trump’s slogan by saying America is already great, and who called all Trump supporters deplorable, is the worst offender. America may have become a much better country for those in the cities, but for those in the Rust Belt and areas like it, America is dying. White privilege, while an important issue in the cosmopolitan city, is harder to understand when the only people you know are white, and they’re all as dirt poor as you, and drug dependency is a major issue. The Democratic Party’s liberal vision of tolerence for all is by definition an abject failure if it doesn’t include absolutely everyone, and based on the attitudes of city people to country people, that toleration is quite incomplete. This failure, combined with the failure of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leaders to court voters, lost the election as much as Trump won it. We as Americans need to express our rage not at each other, but at our elite establishment leaders on both sides. American establishment politics needs to change drastically, or else face a future where candidates like Trump are not the exception, but the norm.
Arts & Culture
Arts & Culture Editors Elena Ciotta - eciotta@fordham.edu Ana Fota - afota@fordham.edu Morgan Steward - msteward2@fordham.edu December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
Disney Animation’s Jessica Julius Visits Fordham By MARYANNA ANTOLDI Asst. Arts & Culture Co-Editor
Dominating the cinematic scene since 1937, the Walt Disney Animation Company has produced over 50 feature films. The movie’s newest blockbuster hit, “Moana,” opened in theaters late November and has continued Disney’s trend of producing beautiful, emotional stories for all to experience. But, how does a germ of an idea for a Disney film become a full-length feature? That is where Jessica Julius, the senior creative executive, enters the scene. Julius visited Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus on Nov. 16, where she spoke to students not only about “Moana,” but also about what makes a good creative executive. Julius has been with the Walt Disney Animation Company for twelveand-a-half years, working on films such as “Tangled,” “Wreck-It-Ralph,” and “Frozen.” As a creative executive, she is responsible for helping the directors of a film flesh out their ideas, beginning her work at the conception of the topic. Some of her work includes performing research, finding writers, discussing the film’s themes and developing its characters and storyline. It is often a hard, long process to make a film, but it is one that is worth the effort. In terms of “‘Moana,” Julius assisted Ron Clements and John Musker, the directors of the film, from day one. Musker and Clements are a famous directing duo, working on films such as “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “The Princess and the Frog.” However, what made “Moana” so different from other films was the incredible amount of research that the team performed about Oceanic cultures. “‘Moana’ is really, really special because of the cultures, the people we learned from,” Julius explained, “And I think that’s really cool. That’s really new, and I hope we did those cultures
MARYANNA ANTOLDI/THE OBSERVER
Julius organized research trips throughout Oceania for the movie’s creative team and animators.
“ When we’re thinking about the story, our movies have to mean something. They have to have emotional resonance for the audience. –
JESSICA JULIUS, senior creative executive of Disney Animation
proud.” “Moana” is the story of a 16-yearold girl of the same name (voiced by native Hawaiian Auli’i Cravalho) who dreams of leaving her island home of Motunui and voyaging out into the open sea. However, when her home is in danger, it is up to her
to find the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) and save her people. Julius helped conduct a lot of the research pertaining to “Moana,” including organizing trips to the Pacific Islands themselves. The team spent an extended amount of time there, where they interacted one-on-one
with the locals and learned about all elements of their culture in order to make an accurate film. In addition, filmmakers formed an Oceanic Story Trust which included not only academics and anthropologists but also local elders, fishermen, and tattoo artists who helped ensure that “Moana” accurately represented the Pacific Islanders. In the words of an elder named Papa Mape who Julius met on the island of Mo‘orea, “For years, we have been swallowed by your culture. For once, can you be swallowed by ours?” That became the charge for the team, and the movie itself transformed into one that yearned to celebrate the people and culture of the Pacific Islands fully.
“The one really cool thing about [‘Moana’] is that there’s no love story. That is not the point of this movie, and it something that Ron [Clements] and John [Musker] did not want from the beginning,” she explained. However, the most important thing about making any movie, according to Julius, is successfully conveying an emotional story to audiences of all ages. “When we’re thinking about the story, our movies have to mean something. They have to have emotional resonance for the audience, because if they don’t, they are just fluffy pieces of entertainment, and that’s not what we want,” she explained, “We want people to really care about their characters.” After five years of dedication and passion from everyone involved in the film, audiences are truly able to admire the beauty of “Moana” not only as a film that contains a captivating, emotional plot with strong characters and themes, but also as a celebration of the Oceanic culture and the people who embody it. Twelve years ago, Julius found her dream career as a creative executive because she loved to do one thing— tell captivating stories. And, to anyone who aspires to work as a creative executive or for the Walt Disney Animation Company in general, she shared some advice. “Work hard. I know that sounds easy, but it is the truth. You have to have tenacity, you have to have persistence, and you have to work on your craft. Talent is not enough. There are thousands and thousands of very talented people out there. And, some of them will succeed, some of them don’t. But the ones who succeed are the ones that work really, really hard.” It takes a lot more than one idea to produce a beautiful film. It takes hard work, passion and love from everyone involved. And, luckily, Jessica Julius is one of the people that helps to craft that idea to a reality.
From Buffy to Friends: What to Watch This Holiday Season By SAM DEASSIS Asst. Arts & Culture Editor
During the holiday season, it seems as though it is just about impossible to escape the ceaseless hopes of merriness and spirit across all media. The radio, to the distaste of many, usually takes the passing of Thanksgiving as its cue to start the “All I Want for Christmas is You” marathon of repetitive music. Homes everywhere seemed to be draped in garland and silver and gold memorabilia; it is hard to enter a house without presence of a tree, menorah or some other sort of symbolic holiday object. It seems as though anywhere you look, you cannot escape the spirit of the holiday season, and to the ambivalent feelings of the public, TV is no exception. Many TV shows take the month of December as the appropriate time to air at least one holiday themed episode. However, this can deter from the actual plot of the series. Some shows tend to keep the holiday idea as background, while some center the entire episode around it. Here is my list of the top five holiday episodes of all time that really tied in the purpose of the show and the holiday spirit to create an episode that is memorable all on its own. #5: “CAN’T FIX CRAZY”“ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK” The final episode of season one of “Orange is the New Black” starts off
humorously with auditions for the Christmas pageant. Many fan favorites go onstage and show their talents, allowing viewers to see all of the side characters with a decent amount of screen time. But aside from the holiday aspect, this episode was extremely eventful to the plot of the series. With Daya and Bennett’s relationship taking its own twists and turns due to Porn Stache’s supposed love for Daya, Red’s being replaced on kitchen duty, and Piper and Larry’s decision to get married, this episode did not allow the holidays to slow anything down. Instead, the holidays boosted the reach of the episode. The inclusion of Larry’s Hanukkah dinner, the Christmas pageant finale with Norma singing and surprising the crowd, and the animosity between Pennsatucky and Piper due to religious belief rising at Christmas allowed for this episode to utilize the holidays to not only further the comedic value, but also the dramatic effect of the show. #4: “THE ONE WITH THE HOLIDAY ARMADILLO”“FRIENDS” This episode strays from the typical Christmas centered theme in that Ross consciously chooses to try and teach his son, Ben, to appreciate his Jewish side by celebrating Hanukkah. This takes a ridiculous, yet typically amusing, turn when Ross chooses to dress up as the “Holiday Armadillo.” This leads to a hilarious scene in which Ben is confronted by both Chandler dressed as Santa and Ross
dressed in a ridiculous armadillo costume. This scene is just silly enough to make even the least holiday-spirited person crack a smile. The viewers also learn a humorous tidbit about Monica’s immense interest in Santa Claus when she tells Chandler to save his Santa suit “for later.” This unconventional approach to the holiday episode makes it a classic in the eyes of any “Friends” fan. #3: “UNHOLY NIGHT”“AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM” Although it may seem like a horror themed series would have some trouble engaging in a holiday other than Halloween, “American Horror Story” makes Christmas work in its favor. In Season 2, “Unholy Night” addresses the holidays without losing the crazy of the asylum. The viewers see a face off with the devil all the while Christmas decorations are being spread around by Sister Mary Eunice, the devil herself. The writers even thought to include an evil, murderous Santa Claus to keep the theme of Christmas apparent. But all of these holiday aspects tie into the show perfectly, with the religious backing to the holidays bringing out the chilling evil of the devil, as well as the mentally disturbed Santa Claus acting as a completely logical addition to the patients within the asylum. This episode perfectly achieves the rare feat of balancing the merry and the creepy to a disturbing degree.
#2: “AMENDS”- “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER” Enough to tug at the heart strings at any Bangel (Buffy and Angel) fans, “Amends” shows the intensity of their love for each other stronger than any other episode in the series. This episode is also the first to incorporate “The First Evil,” a power that comes to Angel in the form of dead people he once knew to torment him. The First does not return again until the final season of the show as the last season enemy and the strongest villain Buffy ever has to face. Through this inclusion, the episode has massive contextual importance aside from the holidays. But the ending scene in which Angel tries to commit suicide by waiting for the sun to come up and kill him, only to have the first snow day in Sunnydale where the sun does not show is far from a disappointing Christmas miracle in the universe of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The magic of the holiday season is strong in this atypical fairytale ending, which is enough to get any vampire-loving viewer into a fuzzy holiday mood. #1: “SHE OF LITTLE FAITH”-“THE SIMPSONS” “The Simpsons” has a great reputation for including holiday influenced episodes. With countless “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween ones, cute Valentine’s Day stories and even the New Year’s additions, the
show is no stranger to tying the holidays into the plot. Keeping in mind that the full series “The Simpsons” started off with a Christmas episode, it is not hard to see that their future Christmas episodes would be just as effective in keeping the audience interested. In “She of Little Faith,” however, the idea of Christmas is actually questioned in the Simpson household, as Lisa struggles to find her religious identity. When Lisa decides to convert to Buddhism, she fears that she will not be able to celebrate Christmas with her family anymore. This is a rarity in “holiday” episodes, as the winter months usually open the floor for shows to do Christmas themed episodes while mostly disregarding the celebrations of other faiths. With this very deep and well thought out storyline involving a search for self identity, this episode can be touching to any lost individuals searching for what to believe in. The episode keeps the most important aspect of the holidays intact: the aspect of family. Despite her religious conversion, Lisa is still allowed into the family celebrations with open arms. No matter what your beliefs may be, this episode tops the list for the best holiday episode of all time. During the holiday season, no matter what you celebrate, there will always be overwhelming amounts of “spirit” wherever you look. This year, if you’re not feeling the warmth, just know that this list of episodes will give you all of the fuzzy feelings you need.
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Photo Feature
December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
Holiday Hot Columbus Avenue “I love walking up Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side, hot chocolate in hand, and seeing all the decorated trees and the streetlights and the snowflakes hanging above the street. I just think it’s the most beautiful scene for the holidays.” - Michaela Browner, FCLC ’19
Bryant Park “One of my favorite things to do in the winter is to go to the Winter Village at Bryant Park and go ice skating and drink hot chocolate. One of the biggest reasons I like doing it, though, is people-watching, because everyone comes out of the woodwork to go ice skating. They come from all boroughs, all neighborhoods—people you would never have seen before.” - Alysha Kundanmal, FCLC ’17
Madison Square Garden “There is a special kind of magic about New Year’s in New York. My friends and I like to go to shows and ring in the upcoming year with good music. There are always fun shows to attend on that night, and every night.” - Matt Gallipoli, FCLC ’19
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Photo Feature
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Spots in NYC
Rockefeller Center “I’d say walking over to Rockefeller center and looking at the tree, and going up to the top of Rockefeller Center, is a great way to spend the holiday season!” - Justin Rebollo, FCLC ’18
Saks Fifth Avenue “I like going to see the windows on Saks Fifth Avenue because they’re very pretty and festive. They’re very well-decorated and really put you in the Christmas spirit.” - Jillian Ridler, FCLC ’19
Radio City Music Hall “My friends and I always love to go see The Rockettes. I don’t feel like Christmas has really started until I see them.” - Austin Spero, FCLC ’19
ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATIE MAURER/THE OBSERVER
www.fordhamobserver.com
THE OBSERVER December 8, 2016
Arts & Culture
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Band Featuring FCLC Student Releases Debut EP By MICHAEL APPLER Contributing Writer
“Well it was a mashup of Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’ and ‘The Static Age’, and there was a saxophone and there was a feather boa,” Franco Giacomarra, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ‘19, told me. “I think that’s where it started.” And there was a makeshift stage in a sticky, humid gymnasium of an all-boys Catholic school, too. There was a banner that read “Battle of the Bands” and there was a rack of repurposed theater-club lights that shone down on Giacomarra and four other friends. They called themselves “The Mob,” and they wore short-sleeved black buttondowns that were just a little too baggy with striped ties that hung just a little too low, and their percussionist paraded around the stage with a cowbell and a fedora that was too big for his head. To be suspected, their setlist consisted of a familiar mixture of angsty, pop-punk, and I can imagine that their audience reacted accordingly to this display of rehearsed grunge. “But, really, we didn’t know what we were doing, and so we decided to add a saxophone solo to Green Day,” Giacomarra said. And so, in a fateful foreshadowing of a future, more eclectic style, their drummer picked up a saxophone, put on a feather boa, and marched around the stage while their school-band-percussionistturned-Sabu-Martinez friend banged on any remotely-clangorous object he could find to the backdrop of Green Day angst. The audience ate it up, and on that stage, to at least Giacomarra and his band of sweaty high school buds, they had found a groove. To no one’s surprise, “The Mob” doesn’t exist anymore. But Avenue Eight does, and in November they released their first professional EP
PHOTO COURTESY OF JESS FULFORD
Franco Giacomarra, fourth from the left, is a sophomore student in the Theatre Program at FCLC.
amidst a crowded lounge in North Philly. Avenue Eight still retains the original five who appeared nearly three years ago on that gymnasium stage, though they’ve since added five more and a horn section that caters to the band’s now brass-infused, quasi-funk style. ‘Funky indie rock,’ as they call it. And funky indie rock it is, because their new album, called “Get Up On The Get Down,” sounds as motley and as improvised as ‘funky indie rock’ would suggest. Somehow, the band has forged a marriage between their punk beginnings and their recent musings in early 70s, brassy Soul Train dance anthems. In many ways, the album references funk in its early, still 60s bound days, and there are heavy notes of those innocent brass cho-
ruses that characterized Earth Wind and Fire’s earlier tracks— but innocent they are, because any hefty funk influences are balanced, sobered even, by their juxtaposition with mid-2000s white-boy punk. Avenue Eight’s promise of an eclectic set list certainly delivers. The title track, first on the album, gives us a wah-wah reminiscence of Sly and the Family Stone with a chorus fit for a Bruno Mars pop hit; “At Your Door’s” descending baselines and punky vocals are heavy on the Ben Folds references while delivering a refrain that recollects Maroon 5 seven years ago; “Buzz Off’s” piano riffs make even heavier nods to Folds while accompanying a melody only a stone’s throw away from “Lady Madonna;” and “Mr. Minor’s” mixture of slap bass and brass-hits sounds like a Trombone
Shorty deep-cut with vocals from 2010 My Chemical Romance. Heavy on the references, yet original enough to be light on the sampling. But, for sure, this brand of alternative throwback to 70s brass sections and Otis Redding-esque ballads is nothing new. In fact, it’s hot right now. Just listen to Saint Paul and the Broken Bones or Black Joe Lewis. It’s all the rage. Avenue Eight sees themselves as different, though. “Our eclectic style isn’t something that we try for,” Giacomarra said. “It’s not a sound we try and make,” one of his bandmates chimed in. “It’s because we’re all into different sounds and different music and we just write songs that we think bring all of that together,” Giacomarra continued. “Sometimes it just starts with an idea, or a little riff. And then
we build. And there’s 10 of us, you know. We’re all equal parts of the band. We’re all the band, and we’re all so different. I’m not sure how it works, to tell you the truth.” “And one more thing. This is important,” he said. “For us it’s all about having a good time. I think that’s the difference between us and everyone else. It’s not so serious. Some of those bands take themselves so seriously. They’re always looking for that sound. We just like to have fun and we just like to mix together a bunch of different styles.” Felipe, the band’s cowbell banging and Fedora wearing percussionist, chimed in with a sufficient summary: “We kind of just want to make people dance.” “Get Up On The Get Down” is available for purchase online at the band’s website.
Students Create New Musical-Satire Webseries UNRAVELED , FROM PAGE 1
via google docs on our laptops, and turned them into... an emmy-worthy performance.” Both theatre majors on the performance track, Ravel and Spero have their hands full between writing, filming, producing and marketing
exactly happened in 2005…you’ll just have to watch the series to find out. Other principle characters on the show include a wide range of Broadway veterans, Hollywood stars and television personalities. It almost feels like this is Jon Rua, a company member of something that could’ve hapthe Broadway hits “Ha m i lton ,” “I n pened to us ten years down the Heights” and the line, but we’re making it “Hands on a Hardbody,” makes an happen now which is really appearance as Gus, the homeexciting. That’s what’s been less man who lives motivating me. outside of Rachel’s apartment. WilAUSTIN SPERO, Fordham College at liam Youmans, best known for Lincoln Center ‘19 Broadway’s “Wicked” and the box office hits “Birdman” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” will play “Rachel Unraveled,” and finishing the part of Rachel’s dad, an estab- their demanding coursework. “We’re lished therapist and pugapoo enthu- crazy and we cry every night,” Spero siast. Olivia Caridi, best known for laughed. “Yeah, we’re crazy,” Ravel participating on Season 20 of ABC’s agreed. “I’m always like, ‘Rachel “The Bachelor,” stars in the series as this is the end of my life.’ But then, I Rachel’s best friend Marie Claire. think we’re just really committed to FCLC acting professor Maria- it,” Spero continued. “It almost feels Christina Oliveras is also participat- like this is something that could have ing in the web series, playing the role happened to us 10 years down the of Jaclyn, a big-shot casting director. line, but we’re making it happen now “We wrote a role for our acting pro- which is really exciting. That’s what’s fessor, and for some miraculous rea- been motivating for me.” son she said yes to us,” Spero said. Ravel and Spero were also quick “Working with her...was a dream to sing the praises of other FCLC stucome true. She took our words, these dents and staff for helping them make words that we wrote at midnight “Rachel Unraveled” a reality. “Along
“
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHARLES WOOD
Real-life best friends, Spero and Ravel play enemies in the musical-satire web series.
the way, [there have been] a ton of Fordham people helping us out. It’s been great to have the support and the resources that Fordham is able to give us and to use that network now,” Spero said. “So many Fordham people,” Ravel agreed. Billy Reece, FCLC ’19, who is a theatre major on the playwriting track, acts as the head writer and composer for the web series. Chloe Morrell, FCLC ’19, and Jennifer Leary, FCLC ’18, worked as the show’s production managers, while Elizabeth Wilson, FCLC ’19, and Ellie Ryan, FCLC ’19, are wardrobe consultants for the series. The duo of Danica Martino, FCLC ’17,
and Anna Michael, FCLC ’17, tackled makeup for “Rachel Unraveled,” while FCLC alum Avery Bart, FCLC ’16, is the still photographer for the production. Asa Lipton, FCLC ’17, rounds out the Fordham portion of the production crew, acting as the web series’ lighting designer. After winning Indiewire’s project of the day, week and month with the help of 8,000 strangers, “Rachel Unraveled” is now in the running for Indiewire’s project of the year. “We gotta win,” Ravel exclaimed. “[If we win,] we get a really nice camera which would be so cool and helpful.” Spero urges everyone to vote
for “Rachel Unraveled” once voting commences in the upcoming weeks. “Project of the year voting will happen within the next month, so I hope everyone votes and supports our project again,” Spero said. So what can fans expect to see in the show? “A mind reading dog,” Ravel said. “Oh yeah, a mind reading dog and lots of blonde wigs,” Spero added. “A lot of pictures of me,” Ravel said before Spero cut in saying “A lot of headshots and a hammer…oh yeah there’s a lot of muffins in [the first episode]. SO many muffins.” Sighing, Ravel finished, saying “Headshots, hammers and muffins, oh my.”
Features
Features Editors Ruby Buddemeyer - rbuddemeyer@fordham.edu Reese Ravner - rravner@fordham.edu
December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
Prof. Scafidi Designs the Future of Fashion Law
By RUBY BUDDEMEYER Features Co-Editor
It’s not every day that you encounter someone like Professor Susan Scafidi. After noticing a deficiency of law specializations within the fashion industry, Scafidi took matters into her own hands, pioneering the first (and only of its kind) Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School. But it hasn’t been an easy road—Scafidi has had to prove colleagues and nonbelievers wrong, promoting and proving that the fashion industry is something to take seriously. As I walked into Professor Scafidi’s office, I was anticipating the stereotypical faculty space. Instead, I was greeted by a plethora of bold statements, from stacks of Chanel books to bright pink accents, that I would soon discover to be the perfect embodiment of Scafidi herself. Scafidi was clad in a chic and classic Diane Von Furstenberg dress, adorned with a grey cashmere sweater. She greeted me warmly and began detailing her journey in the creation of fashion law. “It’s really accidental. It’s not unlike the myth of the people who crash into each other with their peanut butter and their chocolate and make Reese’s,” she joked. Before beginning her career at Fordham, Scafidi was a junior professor at a different institution, working in the area of intellectual property. While she had an enduring interest in fashion, and even a deep family background in the garment industry, Scafidi never considered it professionally. However, she soon began researching the intersection of intellectual property and fashion, noticing that the industry was unrepresented and unprotected. Scafidi started asking questions such as, “How do we view different areas of human creativity and why is there a differential?” Scafidi’s tenure committee advised her to halt these research questions. “[They] said, ‘You can’t write about fashion. It’s too girly. It’s too frivolous. No one will take your seriously.’ But I said, ‘It’s a multibillion—now it’s a trillion— dollar industry, and this is an interesting theoretical question.’” Scafidi paused her research questions, writing instead about cultural creativity, touching upon cuisine, dance and music. “But once I got tenure, I went straight back to fashion,” she explained. “About that time I came to Fordham…and I very quickly realized that it was not just fashion that was unusual with respect to intellectual property questions, but there were all sorts of legal questions throughout the fashion industry, and while obviously designers and fashion houses have always consulted lawyers, there was no field of fashion law.” Scafidi propelled her research efforts forward, and in 2006, Fordham gave her the opportunity to create her own seminar. Scafidi’s choice was obvious: Fashion Law. The seminar received an overwhelming response and Scafidi’s concept of fashion law began to flourish. Scafidi took a moment to call my attention to two mannequins in her office, one wearing a pink dress, and the other wearing a nearly identical dress in purple. “The dresses are a quiz,” she declared, asking me to identify the original and the knock-off. “I ask that question of people— whoever wanders into my office, students, faculty, staff, people who are lost and looking for directions, everyone—over about the course of a year and a half, and only about 75% of the people got it right,” she explained. “They really honestly weren’t sure— and what’s interesting is that this is com-
As I walked into Professor Scafidi’s office...I was greeted by a plethora of bold statements, from stacks of Chanel books to bright pink accents, that I would discover to be the perfect emnodiment of Scafidi herself.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUSAN SCAFIDI
Scafidi founded the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham in order to fill the legal gap in the fashion industry.
pletely legal in the US, but the copy is illegal in Britain (where these dresses are from) because throughout Europe, and Japan, and India, and a number of other countries, there is protection for fashion.” Scafidi’s quiz affirmed just how great the need for fashion law is. As the seminar expanded , Scafidi also worked alongside Diane von Furstenberg in Congress on a bill to protect fashion designers. Alongisde von Furstenberg, former President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and current Chair of the Board, they created the Fashion Law Institute in 2010. The Institute has expanded into nine unique courses in fashion law. The Fashion Law Institute additionally holds pro-bono clinics and public programming that offer
non-lawyers and law students insight into the field of fashion law. In attendance are “usually emerging designers who have no money, no clue and don’t happen to have a college roommate or a cousin who is in law and knows about fashion. But also, some of the largest companies in the world who call us quietly because they want to have a second opinion, they want to have a conversation, they want to have a place to get additional advice and to double check their policies and procedures,” Scafidi noted. Scafidi’s Fashion Law Institute is beginning to expand past its birthplace of Manhattan. “It’s gone global,” she told me. The Fashion Law Institute has hosted programs in Italy, a symposium in Hong Kong, and just last month, Scafidi was in Rio. “It turns out, bizarrely, that I’m
a rockstar in Brazil,” she laughed. “Truly, I had never had an experience like that. I was signing books, I was signing conference programs, I signed T-shirts. I took selfies.” Scafidi said, “It was really touching and really moving and beyond anything I had ever expected, that there were so many people whose lives had been changed by the defining of fashion law as a field. It was designers who finally felt empowered in the development of their businesses, and lawyers who found that this is an area of practice that really inspired them.” In addition to creating each class and program so delicately, Scafidi spends time in the fashion designers’ realm in order to fully understand their needs. Unlike most professors, after an academic meeting on campus, you can often
find Scafidi in the garment district. “It’s useful to see them in context in their studios, so I spend a lot of time in the garment district…It matters to people in the industry that I understand their work. There are plenty of lawyers out there who are great lawyers, but if they don’t understand the technical side of fashion to some degree, or the business of fashion, they will never really understand the law of fashion.” Not only does this experience help Scafidi grasp her client’s concerns, but she also uses these hands-onexperiences to inform her class. If a professor who spends time in ateliers isn’t alluring enough, Scafidi also attends New York Fashion Week. She elaborated, “I think what people outside of the industry don’t understand about the shows is that it’s the show itself, of course, and it’s all the five minute business meetings you have in heels standing next to the runway before and afterwards.” Scafidi doesn’t let the glitz and glamour of the industry detact from her original mission or her dedication to law. “At the end of the day, fashion law is law. And if you don’t love law, you will hate doing it.” While contract and real estate leases are commonplace in the field of Fashion Law, Scafidi does note the excitement she experiences in seeing, feeling and wearing the product that she advocates for. “Whether you’re working on the transactional side and helping people set up their companies and do deals, or you’re working on the litigation side and advising companies…you can still see the results, wear the results, live the results, see other people wearing those results. And so you are affirming not only the designers dream, but the way it funnels creativity into the world.” Our conversation circled back to fashion being mislabeled as merely feminine, or frivolous. “The f-word: frivolous,” she laughed and affirmed, “It really is the f-word.” Fashion holds an interesting stigma and working in the field raises a variety of connotations, ranging from trivial or unnecessary, to pink and feminine. “I think it’s part of the cultural perspective on fashion, as being somehow lesser and somehow feminized, and oriented to the body and not the mind, whereas I think the two are inextricably integrated.” Scafidi shared that she has learned to flaunt her personal relationship with fashion and dressing, ignoring the naysayers. From the many shades of pink and purple in her office, to her bold jewelry, Scafidi embraces her flair. “I will tell you that when I was in grad school and dressing as I do, I had a colleague pull me aside and say, you know if you’re serious about going into academia, you can’t look like you care about what you wear… I nodded politely and changed not a thing.” Scafidi paused. “I teach at a podium, but I always teach on a platform, and that platform is a good three inches high.” With Scafidi’s passion, knowledge and poise, the Fashion Law Institute can only continue to grow. She notes that she sees the Institute now “thinking about influencing policy, whether that means that the state level or at the federal level through the courts, through the legislators or through cultural conversation, I think that it’s always been important for us to think of ourselves as public intellectuals, and thought leaders, and to engage whatever issues are coming up.” Scafidi, on a last note, urged students to use their time and skills in a valuable, yet flexible way: “Have an expertise, develop something that sets you apart and makes you unique, but have the big picture too. And never stop learning.”
12
Features
December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
www.fordhamobserver.com
How to Get Away With Voting
Student from Wisconsin rushes home from NYC to fulfill civic duty. By REESE RAVNER Features Co-Editor
To what length would you go to ensure the fulfillment of your civic duty? This election season, Elodie Huston, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ‘18, discovered just how much her vote meant to her. Upon learning that her absentee ballot would not be counted, Huston pulled out all the stops to ensure that her voice would be heard. What is especially remarkable is that, as a registered Republican, she felt compelled to go to such extremes to vote for the opposite party’s candidate. “It turns out the mixup with my absentee ballot was my fault—there was a lot of confusion on my end as to who I needed to send my absentee ballot to,” Huston said. She explained that, after her first year of college, both of her parents had relocated. Although she was registered to vote in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, she uses her father’s Sheboygan, Wisconsin address as her permanent address, so she sent her absentee ballot request to Sheboygan. Huston sent the request a bit over a week in advance, “with a few days cushion time to make sure it got to WI in time.” By Monday morning, the day before the election, she still hadn’t heard anything. Huston explained that later that afternoon, a clerk from her polling place called to inform her that it was too late to send her a ballot, because her absentee ballot request had just been received. Additionally, she was told that she was supposed to vote where she was originally registered, in Sheboygan Falls, but that she could vote in person and update her registration. “Wisconsin is one of the few states that you can register day of,” Huston said. Due to sheer luck of circumstance (her professor was running late), Huston had some time at the beginning of her 2:30 p.m. block class to email her father to see if coming home would be possible. By 3:00 p.m., she had purchased some relatively affordable tickets to Chicago O’Hare International Airport (O’Hare) and informed her professor that she would be leaving class early to catch her flight at 7:00 p.m. “I ran home and grabbed my laptop and a clean t-shirt,” Huston recounted. “By 5:30 p.m., I was on my way to Newark, and by 6:30 p.m., I had gotten through security with 10
PHOTO COURTESY OF ELODIE HUSTON
Huston chronicled her journey to Wisconsin to vote on on social media through her Snapchat story.
“ I couldn’t stomach the idea of being compla-
cent in his election. My conscious dictated that I prevent his election. And so I bought a ticket.” –
minutes to spare for boarding. And then my plane got delayed.” Nothing like a classic airport debacle to halt the suspense of her journey. While en route, Huston said she felt “pretty silly. I used my emergency funds to pay for the flights and the taxis. But I felt pretty excited—I knew it was going to be a landmark election, and I felt incredibly lucky to be a part of that,” Huston said. Nonetheless, she landed at O’Hare by 9:30 p.m. Central time and was home at her father’s house in Sheboygan by midnight. Why did Huston feel it was so important to get her vote in? And for the Democratic nominee no less? As tweeted by Michaela Finneran, FCLC ’18, “if noted Republican @ ElodieHuston can fly from NYC to
ELODIE HUSTON, FCLC ‘18
WI to vote for HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] I THINK YOU CAN PUT SOME PANTS ON AND WALK TO YOUR POLLING PLACE.” The escapade was undoubtedly extreme. But, for Huston, it was necessary. “I had voted for a different Republican candidate during the primaries and was appalled and dumbfounded when Trump managed to win the nomination,” Huston explained. “For a while after his nomination, I wasn’t sure whether I would vote for a third party candidate, or for Hillary. But it was made apparent pretty early on that voting third party, even though I didn’t particularly care for Clinton, would be a vote taken away from her rather than Trump. To me, he is the manifestation of the most evil parts of our world. I couldn’t
stomach the idea of being complacent in his election. My conscious dictated that I prevent his election. And so I bought a ticket.” The next day, Election Day, she ate apple pie for breakfast (for patriotic measure) and voted midafternoon, before returning home to finish a paper and meet her dad and stepmom for dinner. “None of us were expecting a Trump win, so we weren’t paying attention to any polls,” Huston said. “My dad was relatively quiet while my stepmom and I gushed about the potential of having the first female president in office—he voted third party.” After dinner, Huston’s father drove her to stay with her grandparents in Milwaukee, who would drive her to O’Hare in the morning. “By then, Wisconsin’s polls had closed and counties were starting to be called. We were pretty surprised at the outcomes pouring in. Wisconsin hadn’t been carried by a Republican presidential candidate since Reagan in 1984. Our county, too, was generally pretty blue. It’s a mix of industrial and agricultural, but leans heavily towards the industrial,” Huston said. “I spent the rest of the night, until
about 1:30 a.m. Central time, checking results on my phone.” A few hours later, Huston’s grandparents dropped her off at O’Hare. “I hung around my gate watching the news, and it was crazy. Everyone was really quiet, and not just because it was god-awful early,” Huston recounted, “And then I made it back to the city in time Wednesday morning for my 11:30 a.m. class.” After having some time to take in the results of the election, Huston said that she does not regret her efforts. She laughed, “Although if anyone wants to VenMo me my airfare, I wouldn’t complain.” “I was raised to make decisions with a ‘glad I did’/‘wish I would have’ approach. When I’m making a choice, I try to figure out whether it’s something I’ll be glad I did in 15 years, or will it be something I wish I would have done? If I hadn’t participated in the election, I would have regretted it, especially because of Wisconsin unexpectedly flipping,” Huston said. “Also, I am immensely grateful that I am allowed to vote in this country’s election,” she continued. “I do not want to waste a privilege and a right that so many other people are denied.”
Deck the (Residence) Halls: Staying on Campus Over Break By CAROLINE SHRIVER Contributing Writer
While most Fordham students and faculty leave campus during winter recess, a small group remain on campus for the majority of the holiday season. Before the last exam date on Dec. 21, the population on the Fordham Lincoln Center (FLC) campus has dwindled dramatically and by late December, Lowenstein, McKeon Hall, and McMahon Hall are nearly deserted. Those who do remain on campus when so many have left are able to generate new communities and do what they might not normally do. Joseph Desciak, assistant dean for freshmen at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) has lived on the 15th floor of McKeon Hall with his wife, Lindy, for two years. During winter recess, Dean Desciak and his wife visit family for a couple of days around Christmas, but spend the bulk of the break in their apartment on campus. “It is nice when everyone is away, but it’s nice when everyone comes back,” Desciak said. The campus is “definitely quiet,” and because students
BROOKE PARRETT/THE OBSERVER
Dean Desciak and Father DeCola stay in McKeon during the holidays.
are not allowed to remain in McKeon, the Desciaks take advantage of the alone time. They have guests over and even throw a small “preNew Years party,” Desciak noted. The Desciaks have grown close with Father Vin DeCola, assistant dean for the Gabelli School of Business at Lincoln Center (GSBLC),
who also lives in McKeon Hall and remains on campus, as well as the security guards around campus. “We are some of the only ones in so we chat a little bit more with [the security guards],” Desciak elaborated. In addition to decorating their apartment for Christmas, the Desciaks take advantage of the
empty laundry room, enjoy New York City holiday festivities and participate in community service through the Catholic Church. Father Vincent DeCola lives in McKeon Hall. He stays in his apartment during the break, but leaves for a couple of days to visit family after Christmas. DeCola says that remaining on campus is a time of relaxation when he gets to read, clean and do laundry, and sometimes offers to show a movie for the international students who remain on campus. “Some of these movies are a great way to show them American culture,” DeCola explained. He has also developed a friendship with the security guards on campus because he has a “chance to sit and chat more with them because the students are gone and things are a little bit quieter.” DeCola said that although he does not like the consumer culture surrounding the holidays in New York City, during these times he enjoys observing the “hustle and bustle” of shoppers, “even though I’m not shopping myself,” he added. Yao Yao, FCLC ’19, is from Suzhou, China, and was on campus
for all of last year’s winter recess. He also plans to remain on campus for this year’s winter recess and for majority of the year. Although Yao does not usually celebrate Christmas, he celebrated informally while in the U.S. since it is “really internationally renowned,” Yao said. He added that the campus “feels pretty empty and tranquil” during the winter break, while New York City as a whole “feels really energetic and cheerful.” Yao notes that it would be nice if he had been allowed to remain in McKeon last winter, but he spends much of the break going out with friends and therefore doesn’t think Fordham needs to do more to accommodate students who remain on campus. To many American students, the thought of staying on campus may seem melancholy, so it’s nice to know those who do make the most of it! While the lived experiences of students and faculty who remain on campus for this coming break remains, individuals like Desciak, DeCola, and Yao will reign in the New Year with the peace and serenity of a nearly empty Lincoln Center campus.
www.fordhamobserver.com
THE OBSERVER December 8, 2018
Features
13
A Face Behind the Election Results
Fordham student gets first-hand experience with the Associated Press on election night By STEPHAN KOZUB News Co-Editor
I didn’t have my cell phone on election night. From 4 p.m. on Nov. 8 to 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 9, my only access to the outside world was a desktop phone that rang constantly as strangers frantically called from Arkansas, Mississippi and the fateful swing state of Ohio. Meanwhile, my only access to the national election results was a large computer terminal several feet away that was refreshed every few minutes. To say the least, my night as a Vote Entry Operator for the Associated Press was paradoxical. Even though I was handling raw voter data, anyone with an internet connection or a TV outside of the election center in which I was stationed had a better idea of what was happening nationally. On election night, I sat at a computer, waited for the phone to ring, answered the call, jotted down some numbers that the person on the other end of the line had, then hung up. Sounds simple, right? Not so much. Each person who called was an Associated Press employee stationed in counties throughout Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas. These individuals, also known as “stringers,” would gather voter data from their counties and call them in. On the other end of the line were Vote Entry Operators, or VEOs, such as myself. We would take down their numbers, put them into the computer system and then hit submit. After we clicked that button, those results would go straight to the Associated Press’s subscribers, which includes several major news organizations, such as CNN and The New York Times. To add to that pressure, the room was loud, making it necessary to repeat numbers back to stringers up to three times in some instances before knowing that they were cor-
SABRINA JEN / THE OBSERVER
Independent contracters of the Associated Press worked into the early hours of the morning on the day of the election, tabulating results from accross the country.
rect. When stringers called in with results for close to a dozen different races, the calls could go on for quite a while. There weren’t breaks in the calls either. Once the clock hit 7 p.m., the phone rang almost constantly and did so past midnight. While I was tabulating the voter data, I had some idea of how
the election was going, but did not know for sure. More often than not the counties went to Donald Trump, but I had figured that was normal given Arkansas’s and Mississippi’s reputations as red states. When counties started coming in red for Ohio as well, I did not think much of it either, because most of the counties that I was tabulating
were less populated. At about 10 p.m., however, I found out that Donald Trump was winning. As much as I wanted to talk to those around me about what was happening, there wasn’t much time to do so. Everyone around me was focused on the task at hand, which was the most important thing to be doing in the grand
scheme of things. Despite the high-pressure environment, I got to interact, albeit briefly, with individuals I would have otherwise never met from corners of Arkansas and Mississippi, two states in which I have never even set foot. In between the calls and data tabulation, I also had the chance to interact with Associated Press employees and other VEOs, who ranged from New York University journalism students to Seton Hall University professors to retirees. The unifying forces of cold pizza, sleep deprivation and adrenaline are wondrous things. My night of conversations and election results, however, came to an end around 1:30 a.m. At that time I was given back my cell phone and made my way out of the building into a nearly abandoned 33rd Street. The Empire State Building and Madison Square Garden were both lit up in red, white and blue. Meanwhile, myself and the other VEOs heading home began to check our phones to see what we had missed in the past several hours. From those other people leaving with me I began to hear the first murmurings of the ire at the election results that would define the days to come. At that moment, I was finally able to take in the results of the election and what I had spent the last nine-and-a-half hours doing. As I scrolled through my phone, I saw Associated Press election results pop up for states throughout the country, including Ohio, Arkansas and Mississippi. It felt bewildering to have been a part of the process to report the same results that were now being reported on and distributed to millions across the country. I may have just been one of several hundred VEOs working that night, but as the woman sitting near me at the election center said, “we are a part of the democratic process tonight.” Because of that reason, I knew that it was worth it to devote my election night to what I had just done.
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Sports & Health
Sports & Health Editor Shobair Hussaini - mhussaini2@fordham.edu December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
JASON WANG/THE OBSERVER
Coach Gaitley looks forward to converting her achievements off the court to wins on the court as she leads the Fordham Women’s Basketball team.
Gaitley Hits Career Milestone with 100th Win at Fordham By MADELYN CASALE Contributing Writer
Fordham Women’s Basketball Head Coach Stephanie Gaitley has had a ground-breaking November. In the span of a month, Gaitley was selected for the Women’s Basketball Coaches’ Association (WBCA) NCAA Division I Coaches’ All-America Committee for the third time in her coaching career, reached her 900 game as a Division I women’s basketball head coach and reached 100 wins in her tenure at Fordham. As a WBCA committee member, Coach Gaitley will represent one of only nine regions in the country for the next four years. She and her fellow committee members will spend an entire year choosing the five nominated athletes from each re-
gion, eventually narrowing this pool down to a final All-American team consisting of the 10 best players in the country. As a third-time committee member, Gaitley brings experience to the job. The last time Gaitley was part of the WBCA, her sons were in elementary school. Now that they are all grown up, Gaitley sees this opportunity as a great way to come full-circle. “I always enjoy being part of the process. When I saw that the position had come open, I thought that this was a good opportunity to get back involved.” Despite Gaitley’s impressive milestones—coaching 900 basketball games and winning 100 with Fordham—she does not focus on the numbers. Instead, she ascribes her success to Fordham’s administration, her team and coaching staff. Right away, she knew that Fordham
felt like home. “When I came to interview for the job, I think that the thing that jumped out to me was, to be honest, the people....I kind of felt like I had walked out onto the set of Cheers, everyone is your friend.” Gaitley attributes her success in basketball to her family. “I think it starts in your home. I’m one of eight kids and my mom and dad are both athletes.” Gaitley used this foundation to be part of an Ocean City High School team that went 100-0 in her playing career there. Gaitley said that her high school coach, Pat Dougherty, had a huge impact on her life and basketball career. “She just demanded excellence and made you love the game,” Gaitley recalled. “You learned to be competitive at a young age.” Gaitley used lessons she learned from Dougherty to become an All-American with Vil-
lanova University. There, Gaitley played with one of her six sisters, Courtney, and made NCAA history with a third sister, Coco, who was a player for Fairleigh Dickinson. They were the first three sisters to play in the same Division I college game. Regarding this feat, Gaitley said, “That’s probably one of the things I’m most proud of.” Gaitley has built upon Fordham’s strong sense of community to transform a team that went 0-29 a few years before her arrival into the Atlantic 10 Conference Champions in the 2013-2014 season. Her secrets: team chemistry and an emphasis on defense. “When we won the championship, it was because we had great chemistry. No one really cared about the credit, everyone just wanted a common goal.” Defensively, Fordham held the country’s number-one
ranked team, Notre Dame, to their lowest point total of the season in their Nov. 14 matchup, and on Dec. 1, upset perennial Atlantic 10 powerhouse, Duquesne University. Fordham’s win against Duquesne brings them to 1-0 in the A-10 Conference and 6-2 overall. Gaitley credits her special group of women this year for the success, saying, “This is one of the best teams as far as depth that I’ve ever had.” When asked about her goals or aspirations for this season, Gaitley said that her team tries not to look too far ahead and get lost focusing solely on winning the Atlantic 10 or National Championship. What does she wants her team to focus on instead? Just three little words: “Win the day.” Under Coach Gaitley’s leadership, Fordham women’s basketball is poised to do just that.
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THE OBSERVER December 8, 2016
Sports & Health
NFL Viewership Continues to Decline
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By ALEXANDER DIMISA Asst. Sports & Health Editor
Viewership for what some call “America’s game,” is down in double digit percentages since last year, which has caused owners and the league to scramble for explanations. Six weeks into this season, viewership has been down 11 percent across the league. Since this news was shared by the National Football League (NFL), people have come up with a litany of explanations. Among the most popular theories are: it was an election year, the violence of the game, poor officiating and political protests. One of the most prevalent reasons for why people aren’t tuning into games was that it was an election year. As this election season has been one of the most divisive and watched elections in recent history it seems that many people may turn to the election, by watching coverage from news channels or debate coverage instead of games. This was the case when two of the debates fell on a Thursday and Monday night, putting the two in direct competition. John Murphy, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’19, said, “This election season was far more entertaining television than an NFL game.” The fact that it was an election season may explain why some games had lesser viewership, but not overall. Next, is the fact that the game is becoming increasingly violent, and officials aren’t doing much to stop this rampant issue. It is no secret that football is one of the most violent professional sports and that every time players step on the field they are risking their bodies. But as technology improves and actions are put under a microscope people are more aware of the long term injuries playing in the NFL causes. This is especially true with the stark increases in head injuries such as concussions. On top of this we see referees not doing what they should to help players. While the league is trying
COURTESY OF KEITH ALLISON VIA FLICKR
Many events have unfolded in the 2016 year, which have resulted in a decline in NFL viewer ratings.
to stop hits to the head, these injuries are still very prevalent. Carolina Panthers Quarterback Cam Newton, who is one of the most recognizable and vocal athletes in the game, feels that officials are not calling penalties on clear hits to the head, which can cause long term ailments. Pete Haplan, FCLC ’17, said, “I don’t like watching players go out there and get hit in the head while the refs just stand there and watch, it’s taking away from the game.” The other side to the officiating is that they are cracking down on excessive celebrations, which the league deems detrimental to the game. Many feel this is an unnecessary use of authority and that celebrations add
entertainment and fun to an otherwise violent game. Jon Oak, Gabelli School of Business at Lincoln Center (GSBLC) ’18, said,: “I will still watch games with my family but won’t go out of my way to watch them otherwise, because stopping players from having fun takes fun out of the game for me.” Having an increase in injuries and poor officiating have certainly lead to fewer people wanting to watch football. The last main theory for the decline in viewership is the political protests that many athletes in the league are taking part in. The protests started in the preseason with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the National Anthem in response
to police violence. This action has become widespread across the league, and many other players are doing the same or performing similar actions to voice their opinions. While some see athletes using the platform that they have earned as a positive, but others see it as a distraction from the game, and feel it is inappropriate. Sporting News conducted a 1,000 person poll in early October and found that 32 percent of people said they would stop watching games because of the political protests. One FCLC senior who spoke anonymously stated, “I watch NFL games to ignore political protests, so when athletes do partake in them I would just rather not watch the games.” It is very clear that these
protests have had an impact, as they have made national headlines in recent months, but it is unclear whether they have had a positive or negative impact. While the NFL did set a record high for viewership in their most recent Thursday night game, many still love the game. One such individual is Jenna Pulvermiller, FCLC ’18, said, “I still love to watch football games because I am dedicated to my team, and love the feeling of camaraderie with the other fans.” The NFL still need to determine why their numbers have been down across the board. There are clearly many factors involved, and only time will tell which had the biggest influences.
NBA Season Shoots Off to a Good Start
All of the roster moves and the influx of international players filling rosters will certainly change the flow of the game.
By SJ CYRUS Contributing Writer
Fall has come and gone, and winter prepares us for the next phase of sports. The National Basketball Association’s (NBA) basketball season has been off to a good start. Last year’s championship matchup ended with the Cleveland Cavaliers defeating the Golden State Warriors. After both teams faced off again this season, it looks like they will remain rivals for some time to come. On the other hand, the New York Knicks’ 117–88 loss to Cleveland in their season-opener shows just how far they are from the Championship-level caliber. This was only the first of 82 games, however. Since then, the Knicks have made some adjustments to improve to a record of 11-9. The Knicks made some big trades during the offseason with the Chicago Bulls. This season will be a work in progress for both teams. Expectations were set high for the Knicks with the acquisition of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, but it takes time for the different players to develop chemistry with new coach Jeff Hornacek and new players. Chemistry was an issue for the Knicks early on this season but they have since worked through those issues. The rest of the league was rather busy during the offseason and some rosters have changed dramatically in the past year. For example, Kevin Durant in a Golden State Warriors uniform and Rajon Rondo in a Bulls uniform may take some getting used to. Analysts like Charles Barkley had major questions for the 2015 champions, the Golden State Warriors, this should no longer be a
COURTESY OF ERIK DROST VIA FLICKR
The 2016-17 NBA season provides hope to newly revamped teams who didn’t make the playoffs last year.
concern with the addition of Kevin Durant to the Bay Area team. The Warriors have proven this with a record of 18-3. Coach Steve Kerr and his Warriors are ranked first in the league according to ESPN’s week seven Power Rankings, For the Warriors, another trip to the NBA Finals will be difficult especially with the rise of the Los Angeles Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder. The NBA has changed quite a bit with regards to its diversity as well this season. All of the roster moves and the influx of international players filling rosters will certainly change the flow of the game. International players provide some of the fundamentals, play with less flash and work well within a team
concept, which are some of the complaints about young american players according to commentator Magic Johnson. Western Conference teams now have four teams ranked in the top 10, down from the original six at the start of the season. The San Antonio Spurs, who originally topped that list, have now been replaced by the LA Clippers. Fordham students are voicing their opinions on NBA teams as well. Nasr Bey, Fordham College Professional and Continuing Studies (FCPCS) ’18 said, “As a Philly guy I normally go with the Sixers but we are in a rebuilding stage, so I am rolling with Golden State with the addition of Kevin Durant.” Playing
in this tough Western Conference is very difficult because the teams beat up on each other and they have a few more quality teams than the Eastern Conference. Still, the East has a load of young and upcoming talent. Basketball is becoming more international now than it has been in the past and the Toronto Raptors are a testament to that. They are in the Atlantic Division, which features the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and the Washington Wizards, while being headquartered in Canada. Toronto added a few pieces to attempt to push them past their previous season’s secondround performance in the playoffs. The old faces of the NBA: Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Gar-
nett, are gone. Now, there are new young men taking over like Anthony Davis, Lebron James, Steph Curry and James Harden. At this point in the season, it is difficult to know what the determining factors are to win it all. What we do know is the team that works together best and exercises the team-first concept will usually be around for the Finals in the spring. Here in New York City we have the blessing of two teams: the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets. Both of the teams that represent the area based on current records show that we are slightly improving. The NBA formula works for Fordham students as well due to the diverse makeup of the student body, given that there are so many international students who are basketball fans. Jakar Jones, FCPCS ’18, said, “Nets tickets are student friendly, and the Nets are a rebuilding organization so I will attend several Nets games.” This is good for the Nets because it works on the community and public relations aspects. It will also help put some fans in the seats despite the rebuilding stage the team is currently in; if you’re a Fordham student and you want cheap NBA seats there are plenty of empty seats at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn.
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Sports & Health
December 8, 2016 THE OBSERVER
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Exercising Control over Depression JESS LUSZCZYK/THE OBSERVER
Studies have shown that students can alleviate symptoms of depression with regular physical activity. By JADE GRIFFIN Contributing Writer
Scientists have long questioned how physical activity impacts mental health. Our physical state is just as important as our mental state and recent studies suggest a direct link between the two. It is possible that exercise may be an effective treatment for depression, or even stop it in its tracks. Stone Hocker, Fordham College Lincoln Center, (FCLC) ’20, exercises regularly, either at the YMCA or by running through Central Park. He noted, “A runner’s high is definitely real.” According to the American Psychiatric Association, depression is a major disorder that negatively affects how one feels, thinks and acts. Symptoms include feeling sad, worthless or guilty, difficulty in
sleeping or sleeping excessively, loss of energy and interest, fatigue and thoughts of death and suicide. Depression is not only dangerous for one’s mental health, but it can have a major toll on one’s physical health as well. It has been linked to many serious health concerns such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, substance abuse and suicide. Living a depression-free life not only puts one at a lesser risk for major illnesses, but allows one to have a better quality of life. Joan Roberts, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Natural Sciences, highlights the biological reaction of depression. “Depression and chronic stress result in the overactivity of the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands resulting in a release of excessive cortisol (the steroid stress
hormone), which enhances depression and the possibility of addiction.” She added, “Excessive production of cortisol affects not only the brain, but a proper immune response.” As depression results in loss of hope and energy, it becomes difficult for one to know how to feel better or even muster the motivation for change. This is a result of anhedonia, or inability to experience pleasure, is one of the most dominant symptoms of depression. It is defined by the National Center for Biotechnology Information as the reduced ability to experience pleasure. In other words, one loses interest in previously enjoyable experiences. Anhedonia embodies the seriousness of depression because it results in one’s withdrawal from relationships, ultimately leading to
the harmful consequences of isolation. Exercise is often recommended by doctors for patients seeking treatment for depression as it releases endorphins, which act as anti-depressants. Additionally, it is natural and doesn’t involve any medications. But what kind of exercise is most effective? According to Dr. Roberts, “one of the ways to decrease excessive cortisol release is by aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise, such as running and swimming, has been shown to specifically dampen the excessive stress response which decreases depression, improves mood and enhances executive (logic and memory) thought processes.” Exercise is not a cure-all for depression, but is nonetheless highly recommended for the posi-
tive effect it has on one’s body and mind. Hocker continued, “If I ever feel stressed, overworked or just strange, a run is almost always the cure for me. I think working out provides incredible psychological benefits on top of other health benefits.” Surely, depression cannot be conquered overnight. Rather, it is a slow and gradual process that involves working towards positive change and taking control of one’s mental state. Aside from exercising, there are many things you can do to escape depression, such as psychotherapy (positive thinking), engaging in pleasurable activities and even getting a daily dose of sunlight to spur happiness. A healthy balance between the mind and body can easily be achieved with time and care. Remember to be patient with yourself; feeling better takes
A Healthy Diet can Cut Down on Finals Stress By SHOBAIR HUSSAINI Sports & Health Editor
Maintaining a healthy diet is paramount during any point of the semester, but especially during stressful periods such as midterms and finals. However, students sometimes put off the importance of taking care of their health. If students develop the proper eating habits early on in the semester, it will be much easier to cruise through stressful periods both with a healthy mind and a healthy diet. What constitutes a healthy diet? First and foremost, students should consume a variety of foods. By eating a wide assortment of foods, students can ensure that they are receiving the maximum caloric and nutritional benefits of what they are eating. At the same time, portion sizes are key. Especially for high-calorie foods such as chicken, beef briskets, salmon, quinoa and brown rice. Since serving sizes have increased tremendously in recent years, especially at restaurants or canned foods, reading the nutritional facts beforehand will help students not exceed their daily caloric intake. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends that the average moderately active male and female between ages 18-25 take in 2,800 and 2,000 calories, respectively. Another key component of a healthy diet is consuming plenty of
JENNIFER KHEDAROO/OBSERVER ARCHIVES
By selecting a consistent and healthy diet early on in the semester, students can better succeed during finals week.
produce. It is recommended to eat two-and-a-half cups of vegetables and two cups of fruit each day, for the 2000-calorie diet. Those who are in a weight-loss regimen should eat less than the aforementioned number of calories, depending on their physical activity, weight and age. Green, orange, blue, purple and yellow produce are suggested the most. Produce is beneficial because of the nutrients and fiber present, which may help protect against certain illnesses and diseases. Additionally, refined grains and sugary foods should be eaten in moderation. The
refined carbohydrates in pasta and white bread leave little dietary fiber or nutritional value. Students should also limit snacks such as candies which have empty calories and contribute to weight gain. These sugary foods also contain fats which are unnecessary calories for those trying to maintain a healthy diet. An important facet of a healthy diet is being aware of which liquids to drink and which to avoid. Healthy beverages such as milk and 100 percent fruit juice provide many nutritional benefits. On the other hand, soda, sweetened beverages and alco-
holic drinks supply many calories, yet lack much nutritional good. So, what foods should students then eat? The stress and commitment involved with the preparation of exams and writing papers throughout the semester requires a supply of energy. Much like a car that is low on fuel will gradually decrease in capability, a human being cannot function without nutritients. The proper foods should be eaten in order to provide the mental boost that is needed to focus inside and outside of the classroom. For the busy student, a healthy diet begins with the most important meal of the day—breakfast. Studies have highlighted that skipping breakfast negatively impacts one’s academic performance. Even if students don’t have time to prepare a proper meal, a quick bagel, piece of fruit and 100 percent fruit juice will be sufficient to start the day. Keeping healthy snacks in one’s bag or backpack is also an essential to staying healthy. If hunger hits during the middle of the day or during a late-night study session, these snacks provide a healthier alternative to potato chips or candy. Pretzels, unbuttered popcorn, kale chips, veggies, trail mix and whole grain crackers are just a few examples of snacks that provide a greater nutritional boost and caloric value. When it comes to lunch, students can prepare a salad or soup. Choos-
ing from a variety of greens, vegetables and fresh fruits will be most beneficial. In the case of a salad, light dressing should be used as opposed to ranch, mayonnaise or other creamy dressings, which provide little health benefit. Dinner is equally important and should not be missed. Selecting from a serving of salmon, chicken or steak with vegetables on the side is ideal. It is important to incorporate carbohydrates in one’s diet as well since they keep the body’s cells and muscles energized and provide the needed brain power to excel in one’s studies. Overconsumption can lead to excess calories in the body, which are then stored as fat and lead to weight-gain. WebMD recommends students to include the following ten foods in their diet: milk and yogurt, oats, blueberries, salmon, walnuts, hemp seeds, dark and bittersweet chocolate, dark green vegetables, beans and coffee. Like most things, a moderate inclusion of the mentioned foods and a balance of carbohydrates, fruit and vegetables, dairy and meat products should produce the optimal student diet. Moreover, drinking adequate water each day is crucial in order to provide one’s body with the necessary fluids. Incorporating all of these from day one of the semester will help students maintain the healthy diet necessary to last throughout and after finals week.