Fordham University

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{{Infobox_University |image = Image:Fordhamuniversityseal.jpg |name = Fordham University |latin_name = Universitas Fordhamensis |motto = Sapientia et Doctrina
(Wisdom and Learning) |established = 1841 (as St. John's College) |type = Private |endowment = $372 million |president = Joseph M. McShane, S.J. |city = New York |state = NY |country = USA |undergrad = 8,430 |postgrad = 7,579 (1,652 law) |staff = 681 full time, 475 adjunct |campus = Urban |colors = Maroon and White |mascot = Ram Image:Fordham University mascot.gif |website= www.fordham.edu |free_label = Athletics |free = NCAA Division I }} Fordham University is a prestigious co-educational private university in New York City. Founded in 1841 as St. John's College, Fordham University is currently one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

The University has 11 schools spread out on 3 campuses in New York City. Its main campus, Rose Hill, is in the Bronx. The Lincoln Center Campus, in Manhattan, houses the law school, the Graduate School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Service, the Graduate School of Business Administration, and an undergraduate college. It has a third all-female undergraduate school, Marymount, in the campus at Tarrytown, New York. Marymount College will be phased out in 2007; however the campus will remain active, supporting numerous programs and graduate schools. The University also has a 113-acre biological field station, the Louis Calder Center, in Armonk, N.Y. and a Graduate School of Business in Beijing, China.

Fordham is officially an independent institution, but strongly embraces its Jesuit heritage. "For most students, the Roman Catholic influence is positive," one reads in The Fiske Guide to Colleges 1998, "and many students say that the Jesuit tradition is the school's best attribute." Fordham is listed as one of the top seventy universities in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. Fordham University School of Law is a top tier law school and was ranked 32 in the 2006 U.S. News and World Report Law School Rankings. Fordham Law is now the 15th most selective law school in the United States. It started in 1905 in downtown Manhattan, and moved eventually to Lincoln Center in the 1960s, thanks to, in part, Robert Moses.

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

Contents

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History

Image:Fordham University Admin Building.jpg Fordham University was founded by the Irish-born, Most Reverend John Joseph Hughes (nicknamed "Dagger John"), Archbishop of New York, as Saint John’s College in 1841, and was the first Catholic institution of higher learning in the northeastern United States. The Most Reverend Hughes purchased the old Rose Hill manor for $30,000 for the purpose of establishing the school. St. John's College was opened with six students on June 24, 1841. The Reverend John McCloskey (afterward the archbishop of New York and first American cardinal) was its president, and its faculty was secular priests and lay instructors. The college was paired with a seminary, St. Joseph's, which had been founded in 1839 and which was in charge of Italian Lazarists (also known as Vincentians), with the Reverend Dr. Felix Villanis at its head.

The school was granted its charter to give degrees in theology, arts, law, and medicine, April 10, 1846, by the New York state legislature. Also in 1846, Bishop Hughes recruited five Jesuits from St. Mary's College in Kentucky and other communities, and the Society of Jesus then assumed the administration of the College, while St. Joseph's Seminary was moved and went on to have its own, indepedent history.

In 1907 the name was changed to Fordham University (despite the original name of the school, Fordham has never had any connection with St. John's University, under the care, coincidentally, of the Vincentians). The name Fordham ("village by the ford") refers to the neighborhood of the Bronx in which what is known as the Rose Hill campus of Fordham exists. This neighborhood was named either as a reference to the original settlement that was located near a shallow crossing of the Harlem River (this crossing was the only entry to Manhattan from the north until 1693) or as a reference to Rev. John Fordham, an Anglican priest. The school's motto - Sapientia et doctrina - translates to "wisdom and learning."

Today, some parts of the original school exist: the "Queen's Court" complex of three dormitories and the nave of the nearby university chapel are the original buildings of the college and seminary, and the central portion of the administration building is the original manor house for the Rose Hill farm

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Organization

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


Undergraduate schools:

Graduate schools:

  • Fordham University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1916)
  • The Graduate School of Business Administration (1969)
  • The Graduate School of Education (1916)
  • The Fordham University School of Law (1905)
  • The Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (1969)
  • The Graduate School of Social Service (1916)
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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. Image:P3062951.JPG


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Rose Hill (in the Bronx)

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

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Lincoln Center (Manhattan)

The Fordham campus at Lincoln Center, established in 1961, occupies the area from West 60th Street to West 62nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, in the cultural heart of Manhattan. Across the street is one of the world's great cultural centers, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; nearby are Central Park, Broadway, and Columbus Circle. Located on 8 landscaped acres, about 8,000 professional and undergraduate students attend, with approximately 853 in residence in apartment-style housing.

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Marymount (Tarrytown)

The campus at The Marymount College of Fordham University features the Suburban setting, Large town (10,000 - 49,999) and Residential campus. It is located 25 miles from New York City.

Marymount College, 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 The Marymount College of Fordham University 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.

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Louis J. Calder Center

The Louis J. Calder Center is the home to a biological field station located on an 114-acre field station with a 10 acre lake and laboratories.

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The Beijing Campus

Founded in 1998, it is the site of The Beijing International MBA Program(MiMBA). Over 400 students are enrolled in MBA and EMBA programs.

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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, and the Gloria Laines Library in Marymount are Fordham's other libraries.

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

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Fordham tradition

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, Sapienta et Doctrina (Wisdom and Learning), is etched. The scroll rests of a field in which tongues of fire are displayed, recalling the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of Wisodm 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.[1]

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 begans cheering "One-dam, two-dam, three-dam...Fordham!" The song was an instant hit but "dam" was sanitized to "Ram" to conform to the university's image (Schroth 2002:107).

The "Victory Bell", which hangs 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. Image:Fordham 800.jpg

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.[2]
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Sports

The Fordham varsity sports teams all use the nickname "Rams." Their colors are maroon and white. The Fordham Rams are members of NCAA Division I and compete in the Atlantic Ten 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. Image:Coffey Field.jpg

In 1936 and 1937, the Fordham football team was renowned for its offensive line, nicknamed the "Seven Blocks of Granite," which included Vince Lombardi and Alex Wojciechowicz. In 1937, the team went undefeated and was ranked number three nationally.


Fordham was a football power in the early heydey of college football, and this did not sit well with certain administrators at the school. After an article in Thought magazine questioned why America's Catholic universities were as well known for their blocking and tackling as their education, Fordham shocked football fans across the country by announcing that it had shut down the football program. Players and recruits transferred to other universities.

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.


Coffey Field is named after John Coffey, a former baseball coach at the university.

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Notable Alumni

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The Arts

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Business

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Education

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Government

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Journalism

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Literature

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Radio and Television

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Sports

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Trivia

Image:Fisherman-Fordham.jpg

  • WFUV, 90.7 FM in New York City, is Fordham University's Radio Station. It mainly has an adult album alternative format, although it does carry programs which play music from other genres, such as folk music, jazz and Celtic music.
  • Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Bells was inspired by the ringing of the bells of the University Church. His home, now located in Poe Park not far from the school, once stood on Poe Street, which is even closer, and he is known to have been friendly with the Jesuits with whom he often dined.
  • Rev. William O'Malley, a Jesuit and professor at Fordham, played Father Dyer in "The Exorcist." In addition, scenes from the film were shot on Fordham's campus, including the language lab scene which was filmed in Keating Hall and the bedroom scene which was filmed in Hughes Hall.
  • One of Fordham's dormitory buildings, Walsh Hall, was built facing the street as a condition of the loan Fordham received from New York City. If Fordham had defaulted on the loan, the city would have converted it into a housing project, however this did not occur and the building's entrance still confusingly faces the street on the edge of the Rose Hill campus instead of the interior of the campus.
  • The Lincoln Center Campus was built on the site of a neighborhood torn down using eminent domain for slum clearing. Just prior to that neighborhood being torn down to build Fordham's Lincoln Center Campus, it was used to film West Side Story.
  • The Rose Hill Gym is the nation's oldest gym still in use at the NCAA Division I level. 
 Image:Fordham court 800.jpg





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Movies (at least partially) filmed at Fordham

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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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External links

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