When I think about the first time I toured Fordham, I remember two things. The first is that I was wearing a mask (the year was 2021), and the second is that underneath that mask, I couldn’t stop smiling at the Gothic architecture. At The Ram, we used the term “greystone confines,” coined by Editorial Director Emeritus Jonah Ring, FCRH ’26, to describe our Gothic Rose Hill campus with its bells that ring every hour from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., echoing beyond the campus gates. In fact, he used that phrase in 12 of his articles, which made me laugh. 

I adore the phrase, and as much as I adore the greystone present on our beautiful campus, Rose Hill isn’t a confinement at all. It’s a base. It’s a place where students can escape from the bustling streets of Manhattan and its cacophonous symphony of honking horns and ambulance wails that fade into the background as years go by. 

I will be moving back home to Connecticut after I’m handed that faux diploma and undress myself of the various cords, stoles and pins I worked so tirelessly to accrue — even though they won’t mean anything after May 16. And because I’m moving back to the place I grew up in, I’ve been trying to make the most out of the rest of my time at Fordham. I chat outside with classmates I probably won’t keep in touch with, I eat at my favorite restaurants in the Bronx, I explore other boroughs and, most importantly, I take walks. 

As I walked around Rose Hill these last few weeks, I saw memories. The sidewalk from the McShane Campus Center towards Finlay Hall reminds me of late-night walks after a long production night at The Ram. There’s a bench by Keating Hall where my junior year roommates and I all sat as we waited for a fire drill to end. And I could never forget the spot on the second floor ballroom of McShane (the not-so-brief substitute cafeteria) where I waited for my “meal pick up” every day for three semesters because I acquired a soy allergy one semester into my college career — soy is in pretty much everything, by the way. The window into the second floor lounge of Loschert Hall makes me laugh when I think of the seemingly unwell girl I met there one night, who three years later would become my best friend. The path between Hughes Hall and the statue of the ram is where I realized that I had finally made true friends at the President’s Ball my first year. And whenever I pass Martyrs’ Court at night, I always check to see if the light is on in the room I moved to during the second semester of my first year. It usually is, and I smile. Every place on these 85 acres holds a memory of someone, no matter how well I knew them. 

I’m no stranger to campus celebrities; I’m sure I’m one to many. And I don’t say that vainly; I’m featured too often on the university’s social media platforms not to be. I feel recognized regularly, whether it be a sly double take or someone approaching me saying, “OMG IT’S THE INFLUENCER!” until my cheeks can’t turn a deeper shade of red. True story — it’s happened twice. 

But I recognize people, too. 

There’s the boy who asked to go back to my room to hide from his friends who were trying to make him go out — I now think he was lying. There are the ghosts of my two best friends who transferred back to the golden rays of California after one semester that I occasionally see when the sun is in my eyes. There’s the girl I shared a room with for one semester. There’s the girl I shared a room with for three. Each and every person who I took a class with, people who came to an Ampersand meeting in the basement of Rodrigue’s Coffee House, attended a copy night of The Ram in the basement of McShane, emailed me about the English honor society or commented on one of Fordham’s posts — I remember. 

And after May 16, I won’t walk by these familiar strangers ever again. Yes, I committed to Fordham for its “greystone confines,” but it would be nothing without the people within it who come and go freely. 

So, on May 16, I’ll watch the girls who messaged me on Instagram before we committed stand up from their seats. I’ll grin as I watch fellow Ram staff members who sat with me in B-52 past 2 a.m. occasionally walk up to the stage. I’ll chuckle to myself as the boy I’d never spoken to who called me “the author” grabs his diploma. And I’ll probably tear up as I witness the roommates I fell out of contact with walk across the cobblestones. Because no matter the paths that strayed, there was simply once a time in which we walked together. And those are the memories I choose to preserve. 

So when I hear Keating Hall’s bell ring for the very last time, please know that I’m cherishing the moment. I’m thinking of every place I’ve ever been when I’ve heard that bell ring, and every person who was ever there with me for it.