Fordham Notes: September 2011

Friday, September 23, 2011

Fordham GPS Addresses

If you are planning to use a GPS or other navigation system to visit either the Lincoln Center or Rose Hill campuses, please use the following addresses:


Rose Hill

2853 Southern Boulevard

Bronx, NY 10458


Lincoln Center

113 West 60th Street

New York, NY 10023

Thursday, September 22, 2011

London Dramatic Academy Newsletter

The Fordham University London Dramatic Academy (LDA) Fall 2011 newsletter is out. Get to know LDA in pictures and text.

Contents
  • LDA Fall 2011 Semester Commences
  • Auditions and Masterclasses
  • LDA Orientation In Pictures
  • Important LDA Application Updates
  • New Courses
  • LDA Fall 2011 Novel Project Showing

Download Newsletter Here (PDF).

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

University Statement: Farm to Fordham Program

University Statement | September 21, 2011
Farm to Fordham Program

Fordham University has committed to resuming the Farm to Fordham program, provided its organizers can satisfy concerns regarding safety, hygiene, and insurance. University administrators will meet with program organizers and Fordham's food service managers in the next week to resolve these issues.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Jesuit Rhetoric and Education in the 16th and 21st Centuries

Inaugural Distinguished Guest Lecture in Jesuit Pedagogy
ELOQUENTIA IMPERFECTA: Jesuit Rhetoric and Education in the 16th and 21st Centuries
by Steven Mailloux, Ph.D., President's Professor of Rhetoric at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles

Wednesday, 28 September 2011 | 6 to 8 p.m.
12th Floor Lounge, Lowenstein Center | Lincoln Center Campus

Professor Mailloux's lecture will explore the earliest traditions of Jesuit rhetoric and of Jesuit educational theory, beginning with the Spiritual Exercises and the Ratio Studiorum, as well as the place of Jesuit rhetorical arts and pedagogy today.

Professor Mailloux is the author and editor of six books, including, most recently, Disciplinary Identities: Rhetorical Paths of English, Speech, and Composition. He is currently at work on a history of Jesuit rhetoric.

Sponsored by The Center for Teaching Excellence of Fordham University
Reception to follow lecture

RSVP by Monday, Sept 26, to: www.fordham.edu/ctelecture.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Park Not Thine Car Here




Fordham Lincoln Center campus students and faculty joined Transportation Alternatives on Friday, Sept. 16 to claim their space on the curb in the annual Park(ing) Day 2011.

The students joined activists in some 130 cities around the world to reclaim a street parking space for a day and to transform it into a people-friendly public space.

Students in Fordham’s architecture program designed and crafted furniture out of recycled cardboard; students from Fordham’s theatre program built a stage, and a group of freshman acting majors performed Shakespeare in the Park(ing) spot for passers-by.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

With Hearts Open, Fordham Kiwanis Help Fund Education of 9/11 Family


Shortly after 9/11, Fordham Kiwanis got a letter from a student in a local school as part of a Christmas “grant a wish” program.

The letter was from a boy, Wilson Asitimbay, who had lost his father, Manual, in the World Trade Center attack. The boy’s wish was to have his father back.

An immigrant from Ecuador, Manual Astimbay had been employed as a cook at Windows on the World, where he had worked hard with the dream of bringing his children—including 12-year-old twins Wilson and Richard—to America.

Now, the children had arrived with help from the Red Cross, but their father was gone.

“All we wanted to do was to bring the Asitimbay family some holiday joy,” said Thomas DeJulio, (FCRH '73, LAW '77) New York Kiwanis International vice president and Fordham’s general counsel.

The Kiwanis members purchased toys for the family, and “adopted” them over the long term, keeping in touch as the children grew.

“Kiwanis in New York focused on the long term needs of those families, particularly their educational needs,” he added.

On Tuesday, Sept. 13, Fordham Kiwanis reunited with the Asitimbay family (above, front row) to present a $6,000 contribution toward funding the children’s continuing education, in memory of their father.

The twins, Richard and Wilson, are now 22; 18-year-old Wilmer is a high school senior starting college next year, and the youngest, Edwin, is entering Catholic high school this fall.

In all, some 3,000 children lost a parent on that day ten years ago.

“On the anniversary of 9/11. Kiwanians around the world re-dedicated themselves to impacting the lives of children and trying to make this a "better world" for them to live in,” he said.

--Janet Sassi

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Fordham Hosts a Day of McLuhan

Literary critic and communication theorist Marshall McLuhan died over 30 years ago, but even today his work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. His expressions "the medium is the message" and "the global village" are fixtures in media discourse, and he predicted the development of the World Wide Web three decades before it arrived.

Some may not know that McLuhan was Fordham's Albert Schweitzer Chair in Humanities for the academic year 1967-68.

This weekend the Lincoln Center campus marks what would have been McLuhan's 100th year with "A Marshall McLuhan Centenary Symposium, sponsored by Fordham University and others, on Saturday, Sept. 17. The event is open to the public.

The keynote address will be given by Eric McLuhan, his son and a professor at the University of Toronto. The all-day event is expected to draw a few hundred people on the media visionary and his theories. Now that the Internet age is upon us, there is renewed interest in his work and perspective.

You can get more information here.

--Janet Sassi

Thursday, September 8, 2011

POL Launches New Season On Sept. 12


On Monday, Sept. 12, Fordham’s Poets Out Loud will launch its new season with a New York City-themed reading by poets Patricia Spears Jones and Edwin Torres.

Spears Jones, co-editor for Ordinary Women: Poems of New York City Women, was born and raised in Arkansas. She moved to New York City in the mid-1970s and has actively participated in the city’s poetry and theatre communities, notably as former program coordinator for the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church.

Edwin Torres, a first-generation Puerto Rican who grew up in New York City, got his start in the 1990s at the Lower East Side’s Nuyorican Poets CafĂ©, where he created the “Poets Neurotica,” dance-poetry-music performances. He has been featured in Rolling Stone Magazine, New York Magazine and on PBS’ Charlie Rose. His work mingles poetry with theatre, music, sound and physical improvisation.

The readings are free and open to the public. They start at 7 p.m. on Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, in the Lowenstein Center 12th Floor Lounge.

POL was founded in 1992 by faculty, students and alumni to offer a series of poetry readings in the Lincoln Center area. Later this year, POL will stage a 20th year anniversary reading in the Lowenstein atrium.

Friday, September 2, 2011

GSS Welcomes its First Online Class


On Aug. 30, Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) welcomed its first cohort of students enrolled in its new online Master’s Degree in Social Work (MSW) program.

The thirteen students, who all hail from the tri-state area but live beyond a 50 mile radius of New York City, were on campus for a two-day orientation and a meet-and-greet with eight faculty members participating in the 66-credit program. (In the photo above, associate professor G. Lawrence Farmer talks about research methods to the group.)

Students also met Dean Peter Vaughan, Ph.D., and were given campus tours and tutorials in digital research methods. Fordham's GSS is the first school of social work in New York state to offer an online MSW, said Dale Lindquist, LCSW, D. Min, assistant professor and coordinator of the online program (pictured left, above).

New student Thomas Omaje Benjamin, a transition counselor for the Duchess County Sherrif’s Office, said the online degree served his desire for a graduate program that offered both a social justice emphasis and a part-time curriculum.

“I work full time,” said Benjamin, a resident of Poughkeepsie. “I’ve been looking for a program that has both a social justice foundation and flexibility. There aren’t too many of them around.”

The online students will participate in a monthly integrative seminar designed to match classroom learning and field learning. They will visit Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus again next semester to meet fellow online students, faculty and staff.

—Janet Sassi

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Could This Be You?

Do you like costumes? Are you passionate about Fordham?

The University’s Department of Athletics is looking for a few good students to be this year’s official costumed mascot, the Fordham Ram.

The job requires skill, enthusiasm and commitment, said Julio Diaz, associate athletic director for promotions. Some compensation is available.

The Fordham Ram is expected to appear at all home football games and as many men’s and women’s home basketball games as can be arranged. Additional appearances are required at playoff games in all sports and some student and fundraising functions.

Theatrical and athletic ability are a plus; the successful candidate will be expected to do things like dance to Michael Jackson songs, pose for photo-ops with children and alumni, carry flags or banners, incite the crowd to cheer and to generally promote enthusiasm and good sportsmanship at events.

“It’s a bit like being a Disney character,” Diaz said. “You don’t take off your persona.”

Work shifts average three or four hours, Diaz said. The costume has a cooling system to help the Ram stay comfortable while bringing the sports crowd to a boil.

For more information about how to apply, contact Francoisline Freeman at ffreeman@fordham.edu.