Dear Members of the Fordham Community,

I hope this finds you and your family safe and well. Let me first thank you for your remarkable patience as we continue to work our way through the challenges that this situation has created for all of you and for us. We understand the disruption and stress that this has caused you, and we continue to work to identify ways that we can support you in the various facets of your lives. We have missed being on campus with you, and remain hopeful as we continue our planning for a return to campus this fall.

As we prepare for fall 2020, we have been working diligently to reimagine a safe and enriching student experience on campus. This is one of several communications that will detail our plans as they evolve in light of the changing circumstances around the coronavirus pandemic. We also have launched a Fordham Coronavirus website that will answer many of your questions and will be updated as needed.

Though the 2020-2021 academic year will be considerably different from what we’re accustomed to, the community remains at the core of who we are, and we are committed to providing a high-quality educational experience. In this message, we hope to provide answers about how campus will look and feel in the coming months. Please note that this message is focused on your campus experience, as opposed to academic or financial matters. As always, our top priority is the safety, health, and well-being of our students, faculty, staff, and neighbors.

Look for additional emails in the coming days providing additional updates as conditions—and our planning—evolve, especially for those who will have an exclusively online experience. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your specific concerns and questions.

Fall 2020 Semester
In our various discussions with you, and from surveys we have used to gather your feedback, many of you have been clear in expressing your very strong desires and hopes for a return to an on-campus, in-person experience for the fall semester. We want you to know that we share your desires, and we are doing everything we can to make this possible.

Of course, you also understand the primary caveats to which we must pay attention: (1) your health and safety, and that of those around you, which cannot be compromised by our hopes and desires; and (2) the external circumstances and guidelines that we must operate within. In this context, we have been actively planning and preparing to do all that we can to be open and on campus for the fall, with all that this entails, including the resumption of academic and student life schedules and routines and other activities.

There have been various planning groups in the Provost’s area that are focusing on the academic calendar and instructional delivery, as they try to position us and you to resume your academic life in a way that will be safe and productive. Following this effort, the University has organized several working groups each of which has many assigned objectives and tasks, and their focus includes but has not been limited to the following areas: Community Health, Well-Being and Containment (including intervention, isolation, and contact tracing); Residential Life (including move out and move in); University Health Services (including supplies, testing, immunity, staffing and PPE, vaccinations, and FUEMS); Infrastructure and Building Sanitation; Student Engagement (including Orientation, Programming, Commuter Students, and Student Life); Dining Services; Athletics; Coordination with External Agencies; and others.

As our planning advances, this situation has continued to evolve and we will continue to share information with you as we have it. We will post brief updates by end-of-business each Friday on the Fordham Coronavirus website. More information for each area is provided below.

Residential Life
Housing assignments: The University will provide housing accommodations consistent with our residence hall design capacity. Resident students will have roommates and suitemates, but there will be no oversubscription (additional assignments to individual rooms when demand exceeds normal capacity) and rooms are capped at their normal design capacity.

Safe and phased move-in: Resident students will soon receive information from the Office of Residential Life announcing a phased move-in process during which students who live within a reasonable distance from campus will be asked to schedule a time to move belongings onto campus prior to final arrival. All resident students will have extended move-in periods available to maintain prudent social distance.

Packing: We strongly recommend that you keep the personal belongings you bring to campus to a minimum. We want you to be comfortable, but we also want you to be prepared to move quickly if we find ourselves in a situation similar to last March, when circumstances beyond our control forced us to close the campus and clear out the residence halls without advanced warning.

Quarantine: Students coming from states on the New York state quarantine list should be prepared to self quarantine on or off campus for 14 days, upon arrival. We will share more about this in upcoming communications.

Visitation: All visitation and overnight guest passes for the Fall semester for all non-Fordham individuals will be suspended; residence hall visitation will be limited and capped.

Leave from housing: Resident students who do not wish to return to campus housing, for whatever reason, and would like to consider a leave from campus housing, should contact the Office of Residential Life on their campus. We will work with each student on this and their plans for return at a time when it is most comfortable for each student.

Campus Life and Activities
We are currently planning our programming, including orientation programs, around in-person and virtual components. Student clubs and organizations are busy planning programs and events for you to engage with your peers, both in person and online.

For commuter students: In addition to the library, the Student Involvement areas on each campus are planning for spaces in which commuter students can study and rest between classes and socialize in a safe manner.

Our staff members and offices have continued to maintain active virtual meeting schedules with many of our standing committees, student leaders and students. We urge you to continue to remain engaged with us as much as your schedules allow, and to share your feedback with us. Please stay in touch and let us know how we can assist you.

Dining
All of our dining venues have been modified to ensure safety and proper social distancing, including many physical changes, as well as furniture adjustments. We will provide tented areas at many venues to expand on outdoor dining options. Finally, all of our food formats and platforms have been adjusted to accommodate service requirements and safety, as required by New York state guidelines.

Facilities

• Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems will be operated 24 hours a day with maximal fresh air intake.
• Designation of entrance and exit doors for each building to lessen crowding and congestion at those key locations.
• Reduced capacity in elevators.
• Directional stairwells.
• Reduced passenger capacity of individual Ram Vans (with additional runs as necessary).
• Handwashing and sanitizing stations.
• All members of the community will be provided masks.

Testing
We will provide on-campus testing for students and employees.

Pre Arrival: We encourage all students to get tested at home no more than 7 days before final arrival at campus. Those who test positive at home will be asked to delay move-in/access to campus until they are no longer symptomatic and are cleared to return by their personal physicians. All students coming to campus will be required to provide proof of testing and clearance (i.e. a negative test result within the last 7 days).

Arrival: All students and employees who will be on campus will be expected to get tested prior to arrival or when they arrive, and again at an interval to be determined after classes have begun.

Ongoing: We will also conduct regular ongoing surveillance and diagnostic testing of the student and employee populations. More communication and details will follow on the testing requirements and expectations.

Daily Monitoring
We will offer and expect participation in daily surveillance monitoring through a program called Vitalcheck (which is very easy to navigate). All individuals who will be on campus will be provided with instructions in the coming days, outlining how to register and participate. Please note that commuters will need to complete VitalCheck each day to gain access to campus. Residential students who leave the campus will need to have clearance from VitalCheck to gain reentry back onto campus, and possibly more frequently when on campus. More details will follow on this.

Isolation, Quarantine and Contract Tracing

• Students who test positive and who can go home will be expected to do so; those who cannot go home, for whatever reason, will be isolated on campus.
• We have set aside isolation spaces on each campus, for resident students who test positive and cannot return home, for whatever reason; we will supplement these spaces as needed with off campus accommodations.
• We have made provisions to provide ongoing support services, medical oversight through health services and food delivery to isolated students.
• Students from distant markets and New York state identified hot spot markets, including international students, and other potential exposure cases will be asked to quarantine in their rooms when necessary and possible. We will use off campus sites for quarantine purposes, if this is needed.
• We will engage in contact tracing to identify anyone who might have been exposed to an infected individual for long enough to have put them at risk of infection.

Expectations for Campus Life

• We have developed policies that are specific to COVID-related expectations, which address the wearing of masks and face coverings, social distancing and gathering, on and off campus behavior and more.
• Community members will be expected to sign a pledge that they understand and will adhere to these expectations, in their on campus and off campus behavior.
• We will have signage and awareness campaigns in place to remind the members of our community of these expectations.
• Every person on Fordham property is required to wear an acceptable face covering in all common, public areas and while interacting with anyone else on Fordham property. The University will provide four washable face coverings without charge to all members of the campus community.

Please keep in mind that these policies have been developed with the health, safety and welfare of everyone in our community in mind. Your on-campus experience is important to us, and we know it is important to you, and following these policies is the best way to preserve the experience you love. Not following them is the best way to compromise this experience, for you and everyone in our community.

Communications
We will continue to communicate with you as this situation continues to evolve, and we encourage you to check our website regularly.

We know you miss one another, the campus community and the experience of being together. We miss it as well, and we miss seeing and working with you. Rest assured of our continuing efforts to plan for your safe return to the campus experience we know you love. It is important for all of us to remain connected in these times. Please reach out to our offices as you have questions, and we will continue to assist you in answering them, based on the information available to us. Until we are able to be together again, please stay safe and well, and all the best to you and your families.

Thank you.

Jeffrey L. Gray
Senior Vice President for Student Affairs

“To this day, there are numerous incidents of children and adults being discriminated against or punished because of their natural hairstyle. We’re hoping that this event empowers individuals to embrace their natural beauty and their hair,” said Olga Baez, MC ’05, GSE ’16, executive secretary in Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s residential life office, who is co-sponsoring the event with her nonprofit StriveHigher and the Office of Multicultural Affairs. 

The free event will take place on Saturday, Feb. 29, from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Bepler Commons, located in Faber Hall. It will feature food, raffles, two authors of color who will read aloud from their children’s books, several speakers who will discuss their hair and style tips, and 10 local businesses from the Bronx and Harlem that will be selling natural hair and skin products on site. 

Among the books in the story time session are Don’t Touch My Hair! by Sharee Miller (Little, Brown Books, 2018) and The Girl With The Magical Curls (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018), a paperback by Evita Giron, a freelance writer whose book was inspired by her daughter. She is currently a pastoral mental health counseling student in Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education. 

The expo speakers will reflect on their relationship with their hair and give the audience advice on how to care for their own. They include Martha Depumarejo and Kristopher Little, residence directors at Fordham College at Lincoln Center; Franchesca Ho Sang, GSE ’09, an English language arts teacher in the Bronx; and Courtney Gainous, a senior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. 

Gainous’ talk, “Let’s Get Into This: Hair School 101,” will focus on how to take care of your hair as a college student on a budget. It will include quick and easy ways to style your hair and what to do when you’re having a bad hair day, she said. But overall, the goal of her talk is to empower young women. 

“I want [young girls]to know that protective styles and natural hair in general are professional and beautiful. Some girls might feel like they have to wear the straight wig or the straight, long weave in order to fit society’s standards. But the box braids and big curly hair—those are all beautiful, too,” Gainous said. “I’ve been wearing those all of my time here at Fordham, and I felt great every moment wearing them.” 

Another student speaker, Christine Ibrahim Puri, FCRH ’21, the co-founder and co-president of the Caribbean and African Student Association, will be talking about how she grew to love her natural hair. When she was a young girl in a Nigerian boarding school, she said, she and her classmates were forced to shave off most of their hair. They were told their hair was too difficult to manage and distracting to boys. Some of her classmates cried, she remembered. And she added that everyone should be in charge of their own hair.

“[People should] make it completely up to themselves, and not what other people have to say. Not what is on TV, especially, or magazines,” Puri said. “Whether that is keeping your hair the way it is or blowing it out—whatever it is, it should completely be up to you and not up to society or people around you.”

The Love Your Hair Expo is free and open to the public.

Who She Is

Administrative assistant in Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s residential life office since 2006. 

What She Does 

“I man the front office and assist with any parent questions or concerns,” she said. “I supervise the student workers and assist the housing operations director with anything housing-related.” 

Dealing with Mom and Dad 

“Transitioning from high school to college is an adjustment for both students and parents. A lot of parents [of first-year students]think, ‘This is my first child going to school and I just want to make sure my child has everything [he or she needs].’ So I help calm those nerves and help the parents let go a little bit. Helping parents and students navigate this transitional time is one of my favorite aspects of working in the office of residential life.”

Born in the Dominican Republic, Bred in the Bronx

At 8 years old, Baez immigrated to the U.S. She grew up in the Bronx, where she attended Theodore Roosevelt High School—just across the street from the Rose Hill campus.

“I’ve joked around that I didn’t want to go to Rose Hill because I didn’t want to just cross the street to go to college. A year into me being at Marymount, I find out that Fordham is purchasing Marymount. So I still graduated with a Fordham degree, even though I didn’t want to just ‘go across the street,’” she said with a laugh. 

Over the next three decades, Baez became a three-time Fordham alumna. In 2005, she graduated from Marymount College with a bachelor’s degree in business. In 2016, she earned a master’s degree in counseling from the Graduate School of Education. In 2018, she received a master’s degree in nonprofit leadership through Fordham’s Center for Nonprofit Leaders. (From 2005 to 2006, Baez also worked in the Rose Hill career services office as an internship coordinator.) 

Leading a New Nonprofit

In the summer of 2017, she created Strive4HigherEd: a grassroots program that provides minority students, particularly those from the Bronx, with events and activities that build financial literacy, wellness, education, and career exploration skills. Several months ago, Baez shortened her nonprofit’s name from Strive4HigherEd to StriveHigher. 

“I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t just an emphasis on higher education because the idea of ‘strive’ is to expose students to different experiential and learning opportunities and life skills. I wanted to create a nonprofit that wasn’t just pushing kids to go to college. While that’s something that we do focus on, I focus more on developing the whole child,” she said. “My goal is to help children develop into well-rounded individuals who can reach their full potential. I think that everyone has a different path in life, and the main thing is just figuring out what works best for you and what makes you happy.”

This month, the nonprofit officially became a 501(c)(3) organization. 

“Hopefully it will be funded through grants pretty soon,” Baez said. “But right now, it’s been a grassroots nonprofit … so just out of pocket and friends and family donating. But the support I’ve received with this nonprofit fuels me to continue the work and know that I’m on the right path.” 

From Storytime to College Tours

Baez’s program offers activities for children of all ages, ranging from pre-K to high school students. In the past, she has coordinated financial literacy workshops with Bank of America, where several children created their first savings accounts. She has brought coding classes, courtesy of Code Equal and Fordham’s office of multicultural affairs, to Bronx kids on the Rose Hill campus. And most recently, she started reading stories like “Lucía the Luchadora” and “Hair Love” to children in a local T-Mobile store—stories that often spotlight characters of color, who resemble many of the children that attend Baez’s storytime sessions. 

“A lot of kids in the Bronx are not at reading level,” Baez said. “My goal is to express to parents how important it is to read to their kids and to have the kids reading and being excited about the books they’re reading.” 

She also spearheads local college tours for Bronx students, including children as young as 11 years old. In the summer of 2017, Baez took a group of middle school students and their parents on a tour of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. The following month, they toured the Rose Hill campus and met the women’s basketball team. 

“A lot of parents are like, well, why do we even have to think about that [now]?” Baez said. “It’s [about]exposing the kids to a campus, to a dorm room, and have them hear the words ‘studying abroad’ and know what that means … being able to have that type of vocabulary, no matter their home situation or their neighborhood.”

‘I Want Them to Be Successful and Happy’ 

“[I want to create] a legacy of students building generational wealth. What matters to me the most is for kids to be able to grow up and buy a house or that car and not be in debt, travel, do all these things that are normal in other families and races … and I want them to be successful and happy. I want that to be the legacy that I leave behind.” 

Follow StriveHigher on Instagram for its latest news and updates.

Spearheading the donation effort was Olga Baez, an administrative assistant in Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s residential life office.

“I grew up in the Bronx … It doesn’t make sense for us not to coordinate with different nonprofits to make sure that these items are going to people in need,” said Baez. “We’re supporting the Bronx—we’re supporting different organizations that are able to help people.”

About 30 plastic bags of clothes, enough residential hall items to fill a truck, and several bags of nonperishable items were distributed to six nonprofit organizations across New York City. Lightly used mini fridges were given to high school seniors at the Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology and the Mott Haven Educational Campus. Other donated items include kitchenware, cleaning supplies, bed linens, hangers, shoes, storage containers, mirrors, and microwaves.

In years past, students dropped off clothing donations in Goodwill bins and nonperishable snacks at the end of the academic year. But this year—the third consecutive year that Lincoln Center has hosted a student donation drive—is different.

“This year, we went a little bigger,” Baez said. “We allotted one of the student lounges [in McMahon]for all the items to be donated there. We used one of the student lounges at McKeon as well.”

Some items were shuttled via Ram Van to a homeless shelter for mothers and their children in the Bronx. Others were given to Grad Bag, an organization that gives lightly used residential hall items to incoming first-year college students from low-income households.

Bridge Haven Family Traditional Residence, a transitional shelter for families, was another recipient of the donated household items.

“The goal is for them to move into their own space,” Baez said. “That’s why a lot of the items, like the kitchenware, mirrors, and microwaves, are so useful for them.”

Emaeyak Ekanem, the executive director of Christ Disciples Int’l Ministries, Inc., a church in the Bronx that received some of the donations, said many of the people in the church’s community “don’t have access” to these household items that so many people take for granted.  Fordham’s donation, he said, “helps to further our mission of providing for the needy in the community.”

The three-day welcome begins Sunday, Aug. 30, when 1,722 resident students and 473 commuters will arrive at the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan. Fordham staff and administrators, as well as 210 student orientation leaders, will be on hand to help new freshmen acclimate to campus.

“The goal of orientation overall is to help new students transition into University life, both by getting information and by being made to feel that they’re part of the Fordham community,” said Jennifer Lackie, director of the transition year experience.

“We’ll have excellent staff available to help with the move and all the transitions, physical and otherwise,” said Kimberly Russell, director of residential life at Rose Hill. “The new students shouldn’t worry about anything beyond what color bedspread they want.”

Both campuses have a packed schedule for the day, including a Mass for students and their families and an official welcome from Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham.

Once their families depart, the freshmen will continue to get to know one another at various greetings and gatherings. The night ends with Rose Hill’s Ramapalooza in the Loschert Courtyard and Lincoln Center’s Night of Welcome on the Plaza.

Day 3, “Student Life Day,” features various topics related to living and socializing on a college campus. The day will include presentations and speakers on diversity, wellness, and living the Fordham mission.

“That day will introduce students to the resources that are available at Fordham. They’ll discuss topics that come up on a college campus, such as having healthy relationships and how to make your time at Fordham safe and enjoyable,” Lackie said.

“The students will also get to learn about Fordham’s campus ministry and discover what goes on with programs such as Global Outreach and the Dorothy Day Center.”

Connect with Fordham

…and tag it #Fordham4Me !

The Take Back The Night (TBTN) national organization has selected Fordham to be one of 10 campuses nationwide to serve as a Point of Light, which will hold one of these candlelight vigils and serve as a gathering place for survivors and supporters alike.

A vigil at the Lincoln Center campus will begin on the plaza at 7:30 p.m. Fordham College at Lincoln Center students will lead a presentation featuring poems and personal accounts from survivors of violence, including sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and sexual abuse.

“Everyone has a role and a responsibility to make sure that our community members are safe,” said Kimberly Russell, director of residential life. “I don’t see this as one type of person’s problem—I see it as a community issue. We all have things we can do to make sure our friends are safe.”

On Thursday, April 30, a banner will be displayed outside the McGinley Center (weather permitting), for students, faculty, and staff to sign in support for those who have been affected by violence.

Evening events will kick off at 8 p.m. outside the McGinley Center with a speaker, followed by a 5k “glow in the dark” run around campus. As they race toward Jack Coffey Field, participants will pass signs displaying information about intervening safely when a friend or peer seems to be in danger. In addition, Fordham’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) will be sponsoring a rock-climbing wall.

TBTN is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to ending sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual abuse, and all other forms of sexual violence. Communities across the country hold TBTN-themed events throughout the month of April, which is sexual assault awareness month.

During the week of April 13, Fordham’s Women’s Empowerment group and the United Student Government’s (USG) sexual misconduct task force sponsored additional awareness-raising and solidarity events, including a “How to Be An Ally” discussion, a candlelight vigil, and a “Speak Out” event at which survivors of sexual violence could share their personal experiences.

The April 30 event is supported by the Office of Residential Life, the Residence Halls Association, the USG sexual misconduct task force, ROTC, the football team, and the women’s basketball team.

All campuses of Fordham University will resume normal class schedules and operations on Tuesday, August 30. The University will continue to accommodate students arriving later than scheduled for Move-In.

All classes on all campuses are cancelled on Monday, August 29.

Commuters should consult the New Student Orientation website for each campus for arrival times. Upper Class Move-In will take place on Monday, August 29, after 5 p.m. Upper class students may also move in from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, August 30.

Any questions about move-in times should be directed to the Office of Residential Life at the appropriate campus: [email protected] (Rose Hill) or [email protected] (Lincoln Center).

All classes in Fordham’s graduate, professional and law schools will be held as scheduled beginning Tuesday, August 30.  Undergraduate classes will commence Wednesday, August 31, as scheduled.

The University does not anticipate any further weather-related schedule changes nor updates. As always, the most current information can be found on the Emergency Information Line: (877) 375 HELP (4357); the Severe Weather Line, (800) 280-SNOW (7669); and Fordham’s home page: www.fordham.edu.

Power was temporarily lost to four University buildings at Rose Hill on Friday, March 2, because of flooding. University operations staff  quickly supplied the affected buildings with electricity via backup generators, which have been supplying power since then. All affected students were contacted by the University’s Office of Residential Life, which coordinated any necessary assistance. Class schedules were unaffected.