By Joe Vitale

With Spring Weekend approaching, a group of students living in a row of houses on Hoffman Street decided to host an end-of-the-year party.

After creating a Facebook event, the group of friends (some of whom were not students) invited a few hundred people. The party, scheduled for the evening of Friday, April 24, would span four backyards. All guests would enter through one door.

Within a few days, the number of students who planned to attend on Facebook grew to 1,000, making it one of the largest off-campus parties of the year. It would certainly be the biggest party of the weekend.

But on Friday, one of the administrators of the group and residents of the off-campus apartments, Faizi Samadani, GSB ’15, posted into the group that he had some “traumatizing news:” they had decided to cancel the party.

Students were not able to comment or post in the group, but many were upset that the party was cancelled. Questions were raised regarding administration surveillance. Some wondered whether Fordham had the ability to shut down a party on private property. Most were simply disappointed that the party, one of the most anticipated events of the weekend, was cancelled.

“The amount of kids who said something to me afterward, in the gym and in Hughes [Hall] was amazing,” said Samadani, who was one of the few students to post publicly in the group.

After all, Samadani had high hopes for the party. He said that the large party would, for a short time, dissolve some of the cliques of student life at Fordham.

“I hope kids felt stood up for and a sense of belonging that they may normally not have,” Samadani said. “I really get sad when I see kids around school and they maybe don’t have friends and they may not know what’s going on during the weekend.”

He said with the party’s size, it would give students the opportunity to interact across friend groups and be together during one of the biggest weekends of the year.

Signaling this, with more than a thousand students watching, he even used the Facebook event to share some thoughts that he had on his mind.

In one post, for example, Samadani posted some ground rules about the party. In another, he posted about a bullying incident he saw near an off-campus bar, adding that he would not accept destructive behavior during the party. Both posts received dozens of “likes” from students.

Concern for Belmont

For administrators at Fordham, including Public Safety and the dean of Students’ Office, the concern for off-campus conduct is two-pronged: There is the concern for student safety and there is concern for the surrounding community.

The Belmont community, which generally is considered to run from either 182nd Street to Fordham Road and from Third Avenue to Beamount Road, is home to much more than Fordham students. There are families from Albania and Puerto Rico, as well as Italian families with deep roots on Arthur Avenue. Though many students live in the community, they are the minority who cycle through the community more quickly than most residents.

So, when administrators learned of the party, they reached out to the students to inform them of the multiple risks that would come with the party, assuming there would be alcohol and loud noise well into the night.

“If someone lets us know that our students are planning a large off-campus party with alcohol — as they did in this case — we are always going to reach out to make sure the hosts know the risks they are taking on by planning such an event,” said Christopher Rodgers, dean of Students, in an email to The Fordham Ram. “Planning events like this can mean the hosts are responsible for harm that comes to attendees, even afterward.”

“In this case, it’s fair to say that the students were quite surprised at the chances they were taking by planning such a large-scale event,” he added, before calling their decision to cancel it “smart.”

Rodgers also said he emphasized the aspect of community respect with the group of students during a discussion last week.

“Members of the Fordham community should be counted on to respect the people who live in our neighborhood, and the vast majority do so,” he said. “We are proud of our off-campus students who contribute to life and commerce and perform service in the community. By contrast, large and disruptive parties that keep our working family neighbors and their children awake through the night are obviously unacceptable”

He continued: “This is not what we owe our neighbors and is not a good reflection on the majority of our students who respect our friends in Belmont.”

The dean’s office, as well as Public Safety were concerned that students would not be obeying New York City laws — including laws about noise.

In the 2000s, the city passed a law that stated that quiet hours run from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. The city also operates a 311 system to which residents can call with “service requests” that are not emergencies.

Any New York City resident can report noise complaints, including loud parties and music. Under the law, residents can report “large, loud parties with the potential for danger.”

And all of this localized data is provided on digital maps on the city government’s website.

Beginning in April, there have been nearly 50 residential noise complaints in the Belmont Community. (The city data does not reveal who the complaint was filed against, so it cannot be determined if it was against a student.)

Still, more than a dozen residential noise complaints were called into 311 during the weekend of April 24-26, when Spring Weekend occurred.

Some of the complaints, according to the data provided, were pursued and addressed by NYPD officers.

“The Police Department responded to the complaint and took action to fix the condition,” reads one of the notes under a complaint on Hughes Avenue on April 17.

Another noise complaint, which cited party noises and loud music, was filed on Arthur Avenue in early April. Police, upon arriving, determined “that police action was not necessary.”

Off-Campus Policy

Fordham has a great deal of jurisdiction — even when it comes to what happens outside the campus gates.

The university, according to its off-campus conduct policy, has the ability to prevent violations of the handbook to occur, even if they are outside the campus gates. It has the right to investigate and apply university discipline, according to its policy, especially when alcohol is involved.

It continues: “Fordham University accepts the responsibility to enforce its own code of conduct and will impose sanctions on students guilty of violating any Code provision, on or off-campus.”
Much of the policy demonstrates the close relationship among the office of the dean of students, the office of Public Safety and the New York Police Department.

“Fordham University will cooperate fully with local law enforcement officials in instituting the following procedures for addressing students in the local neighborhood engaged in underage drinking, disorderly conduct or public drunkenness,” the policy states.

If a student is breaking a law, officers can confiscate a student ID and submit a report about the behavior of the student to the Fordham Department of Public Safety.

A Fordham student can face a series of sanctions, depending on previous offenses.

The highest offense listed includes all of the sanctions applicable to the third offense (an official warning, a $100 fine, and up to 20 work hours and/or referral to educational programs) along with suspension or expulsion from the university.

Slippery Slope

Off-campus conduct policies are common across colleges and universities in America.

Rutgers University in New Jersey has a policy similar to Fordham’s.

“The University Code of Student Conduct applies to off-campus student conduct that adversely affects the University community and/or the pursuit of its objectives,” Rutgers University’s policy states. “In addition, the University can respond to other off campus student conduct through non-disciplinary or administrative interventions.”

George Washington University in Washington D.C. has a similar policy on its website.

“The ‘Code of Student Conduct’ applies to all GW students, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, and the university may initiate administrative or disciplinary action against a student for violations of law or university policies whether a violation took place on or off university premises,” the policy states.

While more than 1,800 students die every year of alcohol-related causes, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and an additional 600,000 are injured while drunk, these policies that monitor police off-campus behavior are still being questioned by students.

“What we have here, unfortunately, is a proverbial ‘slippery slope’ of circumstance,” said Brennan Simpkins, GSB ’15, one of the residents of the houses on Hoffman Street.

“In one fatal swoop, it can be perceived that a student’s experience can be minimized due to previous misconceptions or premature allegations,” Simpkins continued. “One can understand the issue of security towards the student body’s general well-being; however, when options are claimed to be exercised over one’s ability to choose to live in the comfort of his/her respective home, it begins to only feel like a ‘Big Brother’ paradigm of sorts.”