By KELLY KULTYS

In one of his last events as dean of Fordham College, Michael Latham held a town hall to address some of the recent achievements of the school.

He led with the impressive graduate school acceptance rates. In 2013, the college boasted a 100 percent acceptance rate for prospective law school students. Latham said this means all students got into at least one of their choices, and many into multiple top programs, such as Fordham, Columbia, NYU and Harvard.

For 2014, Latham joked that Fordham was one student shy of another perfect acceptance rate again. The one student who did not get accepted did not work with the pre-law advisor, Erin Burke.

Doctoral level professional health programs, which range from medical to dental, continue to exceed the national average, which sits at around 45 percent. Fordham’s currently sits at 80 percent acceptance into a five year program and 84.2 percent acceptance for three years.

Latham also poured praise on the recruiting of classes into FCRH, continuing along the lines of Rev. Joseph M. McShane’s, S.J., president of the university, famous speech that he gives to the incoming class at orientation. He says each class is the smartest in school history.

Latham believes Fordham has been able to achieve so much because Fordham “has the best of both worlds, a small liberal arts college at a major research university.”

He says the college continues to aspire to hire faculty that want to teach, which is why the school was able to produce four Fulbright scholars last year.

“I’m always impressed by the close relationship between students and faculty,” Latham said. He believes this relationship has helped foster Fordham’s undergraduate research program. He called this “transformative for the school,” especially since 27 students were either authors or co-authors on journal articles and 68 presentations were given by students at conferences across the country this year.

Going forward, one of the big ongoing projects is the advancement of science education.

“I’m a historian; this was not natural to me,” Latham said.

The programs have added renovated facilities, interdisciplinary sciences and new programs, such as the environmental science and integrative neuroscience curriculum.

The college is also continuing to expand its international education by offering more foreign language options, including adding minors in Mandarin and Arabic, increasing the study abroad offerings and integrating service with the abroad opportunities, such as the program in Pretoria, South Africa.

“I feel really, really strongly about this,” Latham said, regarding students’ decisions to go abroad.

As he finished up his term, Latham offered some advice to FCRH students, calling a liberal arts education “liberating” and reminding students not to sell themselves short in regards to their liberal arts background.

A few students voiced their complaints to the dean about faculty members who are not as invested as Latham claimed, and there were also concerns about how classes were capped. Latham suggested students meet with department heads to address these concerns.

Latham further discussed the process of creating a minor or certificate program. He also agreed with a student complaint that there should be more performing space for students on campus.

To conclude the afternoon, Latham praised his successor, Dr. John Harrington, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and soon-to-be interim dean of Fordham College Rose Hill.

“I’m grateful John Harrington is going to be serving as the interim dean of the college,” Latham said.

“I’m looking forward to next year too,” Harrington responded.

Kelly Kultys is Editor-in-Chief at The Fordham Ram.