By The Editorial Board
In the past several weeks, as the semester has drawn closer to its end, Fordham Daily, USA Today, and The Fordham Ram have published articles addressing systemic problems with various Fordham departments, including the Office of Student Life (OSL), the Office of Student Leadership and Community Development (OSLCD) and the Office of Residential Life (ResLife).
Canton Winer, FCRH ’15 and a former managing editor of The Ram, wrote articles for both The Ram and USA Today, raising serious questions about OSL and Fordham’s free speech restrictions. In the USA Today article, titled “Viewpoint: In the ‘Ten Worst Colleges for Free Speech,’ Where is My School?” he asserted that Fordham’s “unfriendly” speech policies encourage students to blindly accept the “status quo.”
The modified but similar version of the article that later appeared in The Ram as an op-ed, titled “Silence of the Rams: Fordham’s Free Speech Problem,” quickly became one of the most read Ram articles of the year.
Another op-ed in The Ram by Frank Sivilli, FCRH ’15, titled “How Administrators Caused a Culture of Apathy,” also quickly rose to one of the semester’s most popular reads. Sivilli spoke of a dispirited indifference that has descended on Fordham, fostered, he argued, by OSLCD’s stringent policies on club activities that make it difficult to hold activities that appeal to a diverse student body.
And just this Monday, Connor Ryan, FCRH ’15 and former editor-in-chief of The Ram, published an investigative story titled “RAs Speak Out: ResLife has become Mismanaged Workplace” on his news blog, Fordham Daily. Ryan delved into ResLife’s reportedly dysfunctional inner workings, speaking to a number of current and former Resident Assistants and professional employees, all of whom went anonymous for fear of reprisal by administrators. Ryan has reported that the post has garnered tens of thousands of views in just a few days.
Unsurprisingly, most of the most articulated and pointed criticism has come from graduating seniors, like Winer, Sivili and Ryan. With commencement around the corner, members of the class of 2015 seem to feel they have nothing to lose.
But they are not the only ones speaking out.
Here at The Ram, we have had a sudden uptick in students responding to our articles; in fact, in recent years we have never seen an outpouring of voices on this scale. We have gone from receiving just a one or two to the editor over the entire semester, to receiving three in the past two weeks. Fordham’s Respect for Life chapter, the subject of a recent editorial, also responded to The Ram online, countering some of the points made in our piece. Dozens of online comments have been debating the content of our articles for the past semester.
As each of the articles garners more and more views and the criticisms of our campus mount, several important truths are becoming more clear.
Life on campus is good, but it can be better. Students are required to follow university policies, but it does not mean we cannot question them, either in campus publications, on social media or in conversation.
The ultimate test is whether students can translate words into action. We have always had all the tools we need to inspire change, but now we have what students like Sivilli argued has been missing for far too long: the determination to make campus a better place for everyone.
As this semester comes to a close, we at The Ram encourage our fellow students not to lose that motivation. Stay engaged. Stay inspired. And be prepared for an even more exciting fall semester.