By far, the most valuable lesson Fordham University has taught me as I embark on my final year at Rose Hill is the value of community.
Community is the relational air we breathe as humans. It’s our point of connection. Community contextualizes our interpersonal existence, and I’ve been blessed to have found so much of it at Fordham.
Community often extends beyond our close friends and family and is usually more relational than it is social. While many of my friends are involved in the communities that I inhabit at Fordham, they are not the extent of them.
I came to Fordham after I had finished a year of college in Massachusetts. During my first year, I had a tight group of friends and professors who were brilliant in their subjects and sat in the right field box seats of Fenway Park dozens of times. There were many things that brought me joy during my first year, but a lot of what did felt separate and distinct from any larger group. Something was missing. There wasn’t a thirst to dive into the broader world of an institution or organization outside of my social group. What I was missing was community.
This is in no way a condemnation of my previous school. I know many people there who have been communally engaged and love the world that that college provides, and I’ve seen my ex-classmates become involved in ways that visibly give them life.
Community-wise, it just wasn’t for me. That’s what’s beautiful about community, though. What works for some doesn’t for others, and vice versa.
One of my most memorable moments in the community at Fordham was when I worked with other Resident Assistants (RAs) to close down the upperclassmen’s dorms during commencement last May.
This was done with exactly zero of my close friends and with only a handful of people I had met before. The day filled me with immense joy. Walking around newly abandoned rooms with other RAs and marking cleanliness violations and facilities issues is no one’s vision of an exciting day — I get that. But something about gathering with a group of people who were all on the same page, who could joke about the same procedures, make fun of the same bosses and get to know each other at the same time, gave me a prime example of what community looks like.
While I’m no longer an RA, I think back to many moments with my staff in Martyrs’ Court and how we not only all shared a community with each other as teammates and fellow Fordham students but also had a passion for cultivating community for our first-year residents. Offering support and guidance for first-years as they freshly navigated college and Fordham was truly the honor of a lifetime.
One of my friends once told me that everyone needs at least one place where if they don’t show up, they’ll get a text. Not one of frustration or accusation, like when a boss doesn’t see you in the morning sales meeting. But one of interest and curiosity. A “we missed you last week, are you okay?” kind of deal. I think that’s a perfect description of what a community looks like.
To first-years at Fordham looking for community: focus on yourselves and your interests. When you feel passionate about something and do it with others, that’s the recipe for community.
This may sound counterintuitive, but learn to go to things alone. You have to reverse-engineer it. Start with the interest, put yourself in the midst of a group of strangers with that same interest or passion, and a community is born. I joined the copy team at the Ram as a sophomore, not knowing a soul. Now, I eat free pizza every Tuesday night and occasionally edit a page or two for the Culture section.
More than just the simple and often overused “join a club” advice, I invite Rams, new and old, to do something new on campus this week. Go to a different floor in the library. Do some studying in the McShane Student Center instead of the Keating Hall basement. Get your afternoon snack at POD instead of Urban Kitchen. Go to that event that your friends are begging you to go with them to.
Every new thing you can do on campus expands your view of Fordham, shows you a new perspective of a familiar place and deepens your connection to the Fordham community.
Go and make the most of Fordham this week. Build community one step at a time.
Caleb Stine, FCRH ’25, is a journalism major from Durham, N.C.
