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Fordham University

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

Fordham is officially an independent institution, but strongly embraces its Jesuit heritage. "For most students, the Roman Catholic influence is positive," one reads in The Fiske Guide to Colleges 1998, "and many students say that the Jesuit tradition is the school's best attribute." That tradition and attitude towards the student is summarized by the University in its own literature: "The approach begins with a deep respect for you as an individual and your potential, a principle the Jesuits call cura personalis. Because they respect you, our faculty will challenge you to strive for ever greater personal excellence in all aspects of life — intellectual, emotional, moral and physical. That principle, called magis, accounts for the rigor of intellectual exchange and the varied challenges you will experience in New York City and the world beyond."

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

In 2003, Fordham's enrollment included more than 8,000 undergraduate students across the Bronx, Manhattan, and Tarrytown campuses, as well as more than 7,000 graduate students. Fordham awards bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.

Contents

History

Early history (1841-1900)

The Administration Building at the Rose Hill campus.
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The Administration Building at the Rose Hill campus.

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

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

A new century (1901-1950)

Keating Hall at the Rose Hill campus circa February 1937.
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Keating Hall at the Rose Hill campus circa February 1937.

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

Fordham University Press, a member the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) since 1938, was established in 1907 not only to represent and uphold the values and traditions of the University itself, but also to further those values and traditions through the dissemination of scholarly research and ideas. The press publishes primarily in the humanities and the social sciences, with an emphasis on the fields of philosophy, theology, history, classics, communications, economics, sociology, business, political science, and law, as well as literature and the fine arts. Additionally, the press publishes books focusing on the metropolitan New York region and books of interest to the general public.

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

A new campus at Lincoln Center (1951-1999)

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

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

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

Marymount College is assumed (2000-present)

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

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

Organization

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

Keating Hall with Edwards Parade in the foreground (Rose Hill campus).
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Keating Hall with Edwards Parade in the foreground (Rose Hill campus).

Undergraduate schools:

Graduate schools:

Campuses

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

Rose Hill

The main entrance to the Rose Hill campus.
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The main entrance to the Rose Hill campus.

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

Lincoln Center

Peter, Fisher of Men statue at the Lincoln Center campus.
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Peter, Fisher of Men statue at the Lincoln Center campus.

The Lincoln Center campus, established in 1961, occupies the area from West 60th Street to West 62nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, in the cultural heart of Manhattan. Across the street is one of the world's great cultural centers, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; nearby are Central Park, Broadway, and Columbus Circle. Located on seven landscaped acres, about 8,000 professional and undergraduate students attend, with approximately 853 in residence in apartment-style housing. The Lincoln Center campus currently consists of the Leon Lowenstein Building, the Law School Building, Quinn Library, and McMahon Hall dormitory. In August of 2005, the University announced a multi-year, $1 billion proposed master plan to add 1.5 million square feet of academic, student activities, and dormitory space to the campus. The development of the Lincoln Center campus will begin with the expansion of Quinn Library and the construction of a new Law School building, a new student center, a dormitory, and additional parking. Future phases of the development plan include the construction of new space for Fordham College of Liberal Studies, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, the Graduate School of Business, the Graduate School of Social Service, and the Graduate School of Education.[link]

Tarrytown

The 25-acre Tarrytown campus was officially established in 2002 when Marymount College consolidated with Fordham. It is located 25 miles north of New York City in suburban Westchester County, New York. The Graduate School of Business Administration offers its MBA Program in Tarrytown, taught by faculty members from the main Lincoln Center campus.

Louis Calder Center

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

Beijing, China

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

Libraries

Fordham University's main library is The Walsh Family Library, which opened in 1997, and is located at the Rose Hill campus. In its 2004 edition of The Best 351 Colleges, the Princeton Review ranked Fordham’s William D. Walsh Family Library fifth in the country. The Gerald M. Quinn Library at Lincoln Center, The Leo T. Kissam Memorial Library at the law school, and the Gloria Laines Library at Marymount are Fordham's other libraries. 
Fordham University Libraries own more than 2 million volumes, subscribe to more than 15,000 periodicals, and serve as a depository for United States government documents.  In addition, Fordham provides access to more than 20,000 full-text books online, 19,000 online journals, and 44,000 online United States government documents.  The libraries also own many special collections of rare books and manuscripts covering a variety of subjects including Americana, Jesuitica, the French Revolution, and Criminology.



Fordham tradition



The Great Seal


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



Fordham ''Maroon


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


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


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


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


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



The Ram


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



The Victory Bell


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



The Rose Hill Gym




The Rose Hill Gym.

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The Rose Hill Gym.






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



School song


Fordham's school song is "Alma Mater Fordham":

O Alma Mater Fordham, How mighty is thy power


to link our hearts to thee in love that grows with every hour.


Thy winding elms, Thy hallowed halls.


O Fordham alma Mater, what mem'ries each recalls.




O Alma Mater Fordham while yet thy life blood starts


Shined by thy sacred image within thy hearts of hearts.


And in the years That ought to be.


In the years that are to be may life and live be true to me.


O Fordham alma Mater, as I am true to thee.[link]




University songs

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


[Ram", instrumental, as played by the University Band]


[Alma Mater"]


[Marching Song", The Fordham March]



Athletics


left

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



Football

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


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


With 722 all-time wins at the close of the 2005 season, Fordham's football program ranks 15th among Division I programs on the all-time NCAA wins list, and fifth among programs currently playing at the Division I-AA level, trailing only Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Princeton University.  Fordham was invited to play in the 1942 Rose Bowl, but declined the invitation because it had previously accepted a berth in the 1942 Sugar Bowl.  The Rams, who defeated the University of Missouri by a 2-0 score, were the 1942 Sugar Bowl champions.  The Rams also played in the 1941 Cotton Bowl but lost, 13-12, to Texas A&M.



Baseball




Houlihan Park at Jack Coffey Field.

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Houlihan Park at Jack Coffey Field.






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


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


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


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



Notable alumni

For a comprehensive list of alumni, see the List of Notable Fordham University Alumni.


Among the notable people who have graduated from Fordham are Mary Higgins Clark, best-selling suspense novelist; Alan Alda, five-time Emmy Award and six-time Golden Globe Award-winning actor; Denzel Washington, two-time Academy Award and two-time Golden Globe Award-winning actor; Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman Vice Presidential candidate of a major political party; Charles Osgood, three-time Emmy Award and two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist for CBS and Radio Hall of Famer; Vin Scully, Emmy Award-winning sportscaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Baseball Hall of Famer, and Radio Hall of Famer; and Vince Lombardi, football coaching legend.



Image:Hawkeyepierce.gif|
Alan Alda

Image:Denzel Washington.jpg|
Denzel Washington
  
Image:GeraldineFerraro.jpg|
Geraldine Ferraro

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Charles Osgood








Notable Faculty



Student Publications



Trivia






  • On September 30, 1939, Fordham participated in the world’s first televised football game. In front of the sport’s first live TV audience, the Rams defeated Waynesburg College, 34-7. The following week they lost the second ever televised game to the University of Alabama, 7-6. It was not for another month that a professional NFL game was televised.
    • 



    Movies (at least partially) filmed at Fordham
    


    Further reading
    

    

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


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