Leonard Cassuto, Ph.D., professor of English and American Studies and author of The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It (Harvard, 2015)

“At the top of my summer book stack is Laura Kipnis’ new book,  Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus (Harper, 2017). Kipnis’ investigation of the Title IX excesses on many American campuses has a personal side: When she wrote an article about a Title IX investigation at her own university, she found herself the subject of an investigation, too–and that inquiry helped to inspire this book. This is a book about current events, indeed.”

Bill Baker, Ph.D., director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy, and Education

“My summer reading gets a double dip as I read sitting in the lantern room of a lighthouse we care for in Nova Scotia (Henry Island). This year I’ll be reading Enough Said (St. Martin’s Press, 2016) by Mark Thompson, the New York Times Company president and former BBC Director General. He has written a powerful book about what’s gone wrong with the language of politics. I’ll also be reading The Naked Now (The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009) by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar who writes some of the most powerful meditative philosophy I’ve ever read. A lighthouse is a good place to read about God and the spiritual light.”

James McCartin, Ph.D., associate professor of theology

“As a father of three young kids, I’ve grown to appreciate books that offer a window into how children see the world–maybe in an effort to figure out my own kids. Therefore, my summer reading season begins with two childhood memoirs. The first is Maurice O’Sullivan’s Twenty Years a-Growing (J.S. Sanders Books, 1998), set on a remote island in the southwest of Ireland a century ago, and the second will be Carlos Eire’s Waiting for Snow in Havana (Free Press, 2004) which narrates his story as an immigrant growing up between Cuba and the United States in the 1960s. Then, I’ll pick up a book I started last summer but put down as the school year began, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. As to Dostoyevsky, I’ve long been embarrassed to say that I’ve never read him, so now’s my chance to put the embarrassment behind me.”

Heather Dubrow, Ph.D., John D. Boyd, S.J. Chair in Poetic Imagination and the director of Poets Out Loud

“A growing pile of books in my field has been staring at me balefully from my night table for some time, and before they topple over I hope particularly to read more  sections of two of them that I have dipped into only briefly before: Brian Cummings’ The Literary Culture of the Reformation (Oxford, 2002) and Reuben Brower’s Fields of Light (Greenwood Press, 1980). I am in the middle of an extraordinary magical realist novel, George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House, 2017), as well as some volumes of poetry, such as Alicia Ostriker’s latest, Waiting for the Light (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017).

Christina M. Greer, Ph.D., associate professor and associate chair of the political science department

“Since I am preparing to write a lot this summer, I tend to read fiction to help me ‘hear’ language better. Right now I am finishing a series of short stories by Mia Alvar, In the Country (Oneworld Publications, 2016) about Filipino migrations and relationships. I plan on finishing Luther Campbell’s’ memoir The Book of Luke: My Fight for Truth, Justice, and Liberty City (HarperCollins, 2015) about Liberty City, Miami, Florida. He’s a controversial figure, but his analysis of residential racism and segregation in Miami is fascinating. I am also going to read Underground Airlines (Random House, 2016) by Ben Winters, an alternative history of life in the U.S. had the Civil War never happened. [And] since I am teaching Congress in the fall, I’ll likely begin rereading Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate (Vintage Books, 2003), about my favorite president and brilliant congressman, LBJ.”  

Barbara Mundy, Ph.D., professor of art history

“My summer reading list is heavy with books on cities, a topic I’ve written a lot about. At the top is Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach (Simon & Schuster, 2017), a novel set in New York in the 1940s, and I’m getting ready to devour it as soon as I get through my end-of-year reports. David Lida is a Mexico-City-based writer; I can dip into his book of short essays, Las llaves de la ciudad (Sexto Piso, 2008) [Keys to the City], whenever I need to be transported to one of my favorite cities in the world. And then there’s Small Spaces, Beautiful Kitchens (Rockport Publishers, 2003) by Tara McLellan; I’m downsizing to an apartment and trying to figure out how to cram all my cooking gear (fermentation is much on my mind) into a smaller space.”

Robert Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center

“The number one book on my summer reading list is Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved By Beauty (Scriber, 2017), by Dorothy Day’s granddaughter Kate Hennessy.  When I was a high school student at Xavier, we sometimes went to the Catholic Worker House on the Lower East Side, and I had the honor to meet Dorothy Day a couple of times.  When Kate Hennessy spoke at the Fordham Rose Hill campus this year, I was unable to attend, so I’ll make up for missing that event with reading her book.”

Laura Wernick, Ph.D., professor of social work in the Graduate School of Social Service

“Given our political climate and the rise of the alt-right, coupled with ongoing investigations and hearings surrounding Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign, my reading list is focused upon understanding this context and history. Having just read Dark Money and Trump Revealed (Doubleday, 2016), my summer reading list has included All the President’s Men (Pocket Books, 2005) and The Final Days (Simon & Schuster, 2005), along with Masha Gessen’s The Man Without a Face (Riverhead Books, 2012), a critical read to understand the rise and power of Putin. I plan on following this with a series of edited volumes about hope and moving forward from the resistance movement.”  

Mary Beth Werdel, Ph.D., associate professor of pastoral counseling and director of the Pastoral Care and Counseling program at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education

“I will be reading The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015) by Bessel van der Kolk. The book examines holistic approaches to trauma work. I’m interested in the way that spirituality relates to stress related growth, which is the examination of positive psychological consequences of moving through stress. I have a book contract related to the topic. This book touches on related themes of trauma and whole body healing.”

–Veronika Kero

Six years later, however, McCauley has embraced a different calling. The Houston native is graduating with a major in mathematics and a minor in economics. This year, he realized he had a knack for computer coding—and the response he received at a recent interview at Google has convinced him to pursue it as a career.

He discovered an interest in coding after spending his junior year studying abroad at the London School of Economics. Even though he was able to line up several internship interviews for positions in management consulting, nothing came of them. He found himself with no plans for the summer.

So he turned to his thesis adviser, David Swinarski, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics, to see if he could assist in any research. With a summer research grant, McCauley created an analysis suite using raw data from motion capture technology that Columbia Presbyterian Hospital doctors are using to study breathing.

“Breathing looks very different in a person with emphysema compared with a normal person,” he said. His resulting research shows how those differences can be expressed mathematically.

“When I started this project, I realized I could take it as far as I wanted to,” he said. “It ended up being a much more valuable experience, from the standpoint of developing skills and having some experience, than a management consultancy would have been.”

As his interests have evolved from theater to finance to coding, McCauley  also feels like he’s learned how to relax more. A 4.0 student in his first semester, he joked that he felt like he learned more during some of those subsequent “3.75” semesters. His four years at Fordham also afforded him the chance to form long term relationships outside his immediate family. This year, he shared an apartment in Harlem with two fellow honors students who he first met his freshman year, and spent a great deal of his free time at a poetry collective that one of them started.

The college’s small size and liberal arts focus made it the perfect fit, he said.

“If you put yourself out there, you have direct access to everybody—from the professors all the way up to [FCLC Dean] Father Grimes,” he said.

“People really express an interest in the individual student’s well-being.”

In addition to commemorating each cohort, this year alumni from two of the graduate schools were celebrating a common milestone: 100 years since their founding.

As a nod to the occasion, Robert Grimes, SJ, dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, opened the reunion with a special presentation about the history of Fordham’s presence in Manhattan.

Fordham—which began in 1841 as St. John’s College—had its start on the rural Rose Hill Manor property in the Village of Fordham, but plans for a city-based campus were in place from its earliest days, Father Grimes said. Shortly after the college opened, founder Archishop John Hughes invited a group of Kentucky-based Jesuits to run the school. The Jesuits agreed, provided that they could also open a downtown campus.

“We still have the original paperwork documenting the Jesuits’ discernment process about whether to stay in Kentucky or move to New York,” Father Grimes said. “The ‘pro’ for moving [to New York]was, ‘So vast and deeply populated, exercising immense and ever increasing influence over other cities and states in the union.’

“The best they could come up with staying in Kentucky was, ‘It is in the midst of a vast forest.’”

In the early 1950s, the school approached city planner Robert Moses about relocating to a structure he was building at Columbus Circle. Instead, Moses offered Fordham space a few blocks away as part of a new performing arts project.

Fordham broke ground in 1959 and was the first building completed on the property that would become Lincoln Center.

“It was pretty courageous for Fordham to move to the West Side of Manhattan at the time,” Father Grimes said. “I keep wondering what John Hughes would imagine today if he could think back to agreeing to let the Jesuits open a school in the city proper and see how much has changed over the years.”

A key part of Fordham’s Manhattan narrative was the establishment of its professional schools, two of which—the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) and the Graduate School of Education (GSE)—celebrate their centennials this year.

GSS was founded in 1916 by Terence Shealy, SJ, a philosophy professor and faculty member at the Law School. Over the last 100 years, the school has grown to become one of the premier social work schools in the country.

“The school was started out of a recognized need for professional social workers at a very turbulent time in the city and the country,” said Debra M. McPhee, PhD, dean of GSS. “To be the school that is about building capacity in this city—that’s our legacy and it’s still our mission.”

GSE also began in 1916 on the seventh floor of the Woolworth Building. Known then as the Teachers College, its mission was to train future educators not only in the most current pedagogical methods, but also in Catholic and Jesuit educational philosophies.

“Because of the values we espouse and live through our school, we have been able to influence the field of education,” said Virginia Roach, EdD, dean of GSE. “What we bring is a deep respect for individual students, care for the whole child or adult whom we’re working with, and a deep humility about who we work with and how we work with them and for the innate value each student has.”

Overall, the legacy of Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus has been and continues to be the camaraderie among the students it brings together, several alumni said.

“I look back with a sense of fondness on my time at Fordham,” said Tanika Cumberbatch-Torres, FCLC ’05. “I met my husband here. And I hope our daughter will go here one day.”

Cumberbatch-Torres was representing an entire family of Fordham graduates—her mother-in-law Ana Torres graduated in 2010 and her husband Johnny Torres, an administrative staff member at GSS, is a current student. Their 8-month-old daughter Emely sported her own nametag with the designation FCLC ’??.

“Fordham was the best decision I made,” said former art history student Kit Byrne, FCLC ’07. “It lets you become who you are as an individual… I knew early on that I was in the right place.”\

The occasion was an Aug. 26 dean’s reception for parents of international students from the Class of 2019. Elsewhere on campus their children were acclimating to their new school through the Global Transitions Program, an extensive orientation geared toward international students.

Donna Rapaccioli, PhD, dean of the Gabelli School of Business, and Maura Mast, PhD, dean ofFordham College at Rose Hill, joined Father Grimes to welcome the parents of the largest international class to date. Rapaccioli, a mother of three, said she was well versed in the college move-in day.

“I remember it was a was a proud moment, but one that was filled with anxiety,” she said. “But Fordham has an ecosystem that will ensure that your child has the support they need.”

For her part, Mast said she could relate to the students, as this was her first public event as the new dean at Rose Hill. She is the first woman to fill the role since the college’s inception in 1841.

“I chose to come to Fordham for many of the same reasons that your children did,” she said, adding that she appreciated Fordham’s emphasis on the undergraduate experience. “Your sons and daughters will broaden their world socially, culturally, academically, and I hope spiritually.”

The event was a new initiative for the Parents’ Leadership Council that offered moms and dads their own orientation to Fordham. Parents went on a tour of Rose Hill, attended the reception, and a later were welcomed at an elegant dinner. The following day, Isabelle Frank, dean of the School of Professional and Continuing Studies, joined Midori Yamamura, PhD, lecturer in art, to lead parents on a tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Move-in day is important because we leave our kids to the University,” said Andrea Mennillo, the international chair of the Parents’ Leadership Council. “Fordham is a great community, and families are a part of that.”

Eric and Anna Pichardo, of Tijuana, Mexico, arrived at the reception with bags from a Uniqlo, the Japanese clothing store. Earlier that day they were in Queens at Costco and Target, getting dorm room supplies for their daughter, Erica, a freshman at Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

“She was calling us all day, saying ‘I need this, I forgot this, and I need that,’” Eric said with a laugh.

He said he was calm about his daughter’s transition, being that the parents have been schooling their daughters in California since the girls were in first grade. Anna was a bit more apprehensive. She was worried that Erica might not like the food.

No such problem with incoming freshman Chenyang Fu from Shanghai, China, said her mother Amy Liu.

“She likes the city, she likes the University, and she loves the food,” she said.

Some of the international students toured the campus last winter. But many were encountering it for the first time, as was the case with freshman Jake Chen. His parents, Joanne and Peter Chen, said that he had just finished his national service in Singapore.

“We’ve raised our kids to be as international as possible,” said Peter. “Jake is very capable, so his adjusting is the least of my worries.”

With this year’s crop of new international students hailing from Saudi Arabia to Spain, from Monaco to Mexico, and from Italy to India, the parents exhibited the mix of pride and anxiety that Rapaccioli described.

But the Global Transitions program for parents, which offered them three days to get to know fellow international parents, did offer a measure of calm, said Trygve Kjolseth, who arrived with his son Thomas from Norway.

“When we walked around campus this morning I thought, ‘This is a really good group, we should get together again,’” he said. “Our families seem to have some common denominators, and that gives me a good feeling about the community for the kids.”

The Lincoln Center campus was abuzz Friday evening as alumni from the three schools gathered in and around the Lowenstein Center Atrium, the Robert Moses Plaza, and, for the first time, in the Law School’s Skadden Conference Center, to reunite, reminisce, and network on a warm summer evening.

The events got started with a final lecture delivered by Michael Tueth, SJ, associate professor of communication and media studies. Titled “A Jesuit on Movies and Meaning,” Father Tueth used the occasion of his retirement to show clips from four movies, including On the Waterfront and Dead Man Walking, that highlight examples of faith, hope, and charity.

He cited the First Principle and Foundation of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, which says that all the things in this world are gifts of God, given to us to know God better.

“I count movies as one of those gifts that God, Thomas Edison, and a few others have given us,” he said.

In the White Box Studio, actor/musician Van Hughes, FCLC ’05 celebrated his 10th reunion with an electrified acoustic guitar set of his own songs and songs from the Broadway play American Idiot, in which he played the lead role on the touring production.

His final number was a song he’d written with lyrics lifted directly from a love letter from a high-school acquaintance.

“In high school, I really got into writing music with other people’s words, because I knew mine weren’t really good,” he said. Today he’s “still not very good because I’m still doing the same thing,” he joked.

In his welcoming address, Robert Grimes, SJ, dean of FCLC, remarked how different the campus feels now that freshmen are living in McKeon Hall above the law school. The new living arrangements will enable the college to admit the largest class in its history next year—an estimated 570 students, compared to 450 just two years ago.

Outside on the plaza, alumni celebrated the memories. Suzanne Matthews Foye, FCLC ’81, GSE ’82, reminisced about how she met her husband Patrick Foye, FCRH ’77, LAW ’81, while she was on the debate team that he coached. They got married in 1984 and had three daughters—one of them, Heather Foye, FCLC ’14, was also there.

“If it wasn’t for Fordham, you wouldn’t have been born!” Suzanne told her daughter.

Rocco Adriola, FCLC ’79, looked on in amusement. Adriola, a former president of the debate team himself, knew Patrick Foye in high school and recruited him to join the team.

Across the plaza at the law school, Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham, praised the GSS as a great mission-driven school.

“I hear about you in glowing terms from people in city and state government, from people in hospitals, for everything you do to make sure that the forgotten are not forgotten, that the poor are lifted up, and that the desperate have a word of hope given to them,” he said. “You are in many ways, all saints.”

Among those in attendance was Steven L. Herbst, GSS ’13, a psychiatric social worker who counsels clients who are sentenced to serve time in rehabilitation facilities rather than prisons. Herbst (who had a copy of a Hunter S. Thompson’s book on outlaw motorcycle gangs poking out of his vest pocket) said a few of his clients are former members of the Hell’s Angels.

“After helping people in an amateur fashion, I wanted to do it professionally,” said Herbst, who returned to school for a master’s degree to gain employment as a counselor.
“I like working with adults and I feel it’s [my]mission to support people in recovery from drugs, alcohol, and nicotine.”

Directly across the hall in the Costantino Room, Donna Rapaccioli, PhD, dean of the Gabelli School of Business, directed the alumni’s attention to 140 W. 62nd St., the former home of the law school. The building, currently under renovation, will be the future location of the business school, scheduled for occupancy in 2016.

The unification of the two schools of business under the Gabelli name has already helped graduates leverage their degrees, Rapaccioli said. She noted that there are now 35,000 business alumni who can further help each other, as well as current students, foster their careers.

“We really need your help with expanding our ability to use New York as our campus,” she said.

The garden in which the Frederick Shrady cast-bronze statue had stood was long gone, replaced by the gleaming 22-story Fordham Law School and McKeon Hall residence.

This wasn’t actually the first change of scenery for St. Peter, who was given in 1970 as a gift from William T. Brady, former chair of the Board of Trustees.

St. Peter was originally installed in a reflecting pool that was later filled in. The choice of where to return the statue was likewise far from arbitrary. Tom Walsh, assistant project director for Facilities Development, noted that the statue now sits atop a support column for the one-story “podium” that supports the Robert Moses Plaza, in close proximity to Fordham’s architecture and art studios below.

Similar support columns throughout the plaza hold up trees, each of which can weigh as much as 6,000 pounds. St. Peter, by comparison, is a paltry 2,400 pounds.

Robert M. Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, said that even though the statue’s original setting is long gone, the story behind the statue—in which Peter reluctantly casts his net into the sea at the behest of Jesus—is still relevant.

“If people actually look at Peter’s face, they’ll see something that we all go through: that sense of frustration, that sense that this isn’t going to work. And at the same time, there’s that sense of hope and saying, ‘Yes, I’m going to try this one more time,’” he said.

“I think that’s applicable at all times to all people, but especially to college students.”

The garden in which the Frederick Shrady cast-bronze statue had stood was long gone, replaced by the gleaming 22-story Fordham Law School and McKeon Hall residence.

This wasn’t actually the first change of scenery for St. Peter, who was given in 1970 as a gift from William T. Brady, former chair of the Board of Trustees.

St. Peter was originally installed in a reflecting pool that was later filled in. The choice of where to return the statue was likewise far from arbitrary. Tom Walsh, assistant project director for Facilities Development, noted that the statue now sits atop a support column for the one-story “podium” that supports the Robert Moses Plaza, in close proximity to Fordham’s architecture and art studios below.

Similar support columns throughout the plaza hold up trees, each of which can weigh as much as 6,000 pounds. St. Peter, by comparison, is a paltry 2,400 pounds.

Robert R. Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, said that even though the statue’s original setting is long gone, the story behind the statue—in which Peter reluctantly casts his net into the sea at the behest of Jesus—is still relevant.

“If people actually look at Peter’s face, they’ll see something that we all go through: that sense of frustration, that sense that this isn’t going to work. And at the same time, there’s that sense of hope and saying, ‘Yes, I’m going to try this one more time,’” he said.

“I think that’s applicable at all times to all people, but especially to college students.”

This year’s Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) reunion proved to be more than receptions, reminiscences and revisits with old classmates.

Some 500 FCLC alumni filled Robert Moses Plaza on June 10 to help the college launch its $16-million portion of Fordham’s $500 million capital campaign, Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham. The comprehensive fundraising effort promises to deepen FCLC’s presence in New York City.

With just under $12 million already raised for the college, Robert Grimes, S.J., dean of FCLC, urged all alumni and friends of Fordham to get involved in the campaign, which calls for six new buildings and 1.5 million square feet of space to be built on the Lincoln Center campus.

The first phase of the build-out began in April when work started on a new building for the Fordham School of Law.

“It’s a tremendously exciting moment in the history of FCLC, and I can’t wait to see it,” said Father Grimes, speaking under the Reunion Tent. “The campaign promises to expand the college into a campus.”

Dan Rolon, FCLC ’08, a mathematics major, said he hoped that an expansion of the Lincoln Center campus would offer more variety to students, particularly more club space for student activities and more event space, which, in turn, would create more of a campus feel.

“I am sure that new buildings will give FCLC more prestige over other Manhattan colleges,” said Rolon, who studied in the honors program.

Even with its current space shortages (FCLC has barely 100 gross square feet per student), the college has managed to produce some of the nation’s best and brightest, Father Grimes said. FCLC’s alumni include:

• Joseph Vignone, FCLC ’11, who won the University’s first Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics last year;

• John Benjamin Hickey, FCLC ’85, who just won a Tony Award for his performance in The Normal Heart;

• Jane McGonigal, Ph.D., FCLC ’99, a member of O Magazine’s 2010  List of the 25 most powerful women changing America; and

Rocco Andriola, FCLC ’79, and Delia Peters, FCLC ’85, join with Father McShane (right) to pose with the class gift.

• Annie Parisse, FCLC ’97, an actress appearing this summer in Shakespeare in the Park.

Father Grimes joined Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, to accept a gift of $7,641 from the Class of 2011, and a combined gift of $2,716,534, from the classes of 1971 through 2010.

“You have been a large part of the University’s most successful fundraising year,” Father McShane said. “Be proud of Fordham, and be our ambassadors to the world.”

Alumni enjoyed an evening that began with lectures by FCLC faculty inside the Lowenstein Center, followed by a buffet on Robert Moses Plaza and music and dancing under the tent.

Members of the Class of 2001 said that 10 years had gone by in a blink.

“It doesn’t feel nearly as long as it sounds,” said Osman Mariano, FCLC ’01, raising a toast with fellow 2001 graduates. “In 1997, when we were freshmen, the music was so different, and there was no Facebook.”

“How about the Internet connection in our dorm room?” said Paul Kim, FCLC ’01. “We were all psyched in our sophomore year because we had dial-up in our dorm room—and it was so bad!”

Even though it seemed superfluous at the time to study a core curriculum, Mariano said that, 10 years out, he appreciates his FCLC education more than ever.

“At the time, I thought, ‘Who cares who Kierkegaard is?’” the psychology major said. “But now I get it. It has opened doors for me, and definitely helped me in graduate school.”

The reunion was a family affair for Sally Steg-Williams, FCLC ’79, her husband, Philip Williams FCRH ’72, GSAS ’74, and their son, Philip Williams, FCLC ’10, who commuted from Queens.

“Back in the ’70s FCLC was more of a commuter school, and we hung out with people in our departments,” Steg-Williams said. “But it was still a wonderful experience. I was thrilled when my son wanted to go here.”

The FCLC reunion also welcomed Fordham students who had attended the Undergraduate School of Education (UGE), which existed at 302 Broadway in Manhattan before the Lincoln Center campus opened in the 1960s. Beatrice Maher, UGE ’45, recalled having to get an undergraduate degree during World War II in just three years on a campus that had no male students.

Dorothy Turchinsky, UGE ’58, said that in the days before FCLC, the UGE was thought of as Fordham’s “Manhattan campus.”

“We had the coolest campus of all,” she said, “because now it is Tribeca.”

The newspaper also won first place in the category of “multimedia package contest” for “A Second Look: More Stops Along the 7 Train” by online editor P.J. Williams, a senior.

“The Observer has won so many awards in recent years, it is easy to forget that each year brings new leadership and new challenges,” said Robert Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. “This year’s staff deserves special praise, not only for the award in a traditional journalistic category, but even more so for its first award in a multimedia category, clearly the wave of the future.”

“I could not be more proud of The Observer’s staff,” said editor in chief Ashley WennersHerron, a senior. “After a particularly difficult year, it’s lovely to have recognition for the hard work our talented editors and writers put into every aspect of the newspaper.”

Adviser Elizabeth Stone, Ph.D., professor of English and communications and media studies, noted that the newspaper’s staff was acutely aware of the enormous changes that are underway in journalism, and have adapted accordingly.

“This year The Observer editorial board made the decision to move forward and concentrate on online multimedia. I’m very proud of the entire editorial board and its collaborative and cooperative action,” she said.

The Observer took first place in Best of Show in 2008 and 2009, and 10th place for Best Website in 2009. In 2007, The Observer won an honorable mention in Best of Show.

The Midwinter National College Newspaper Convention is sponsored by the Associate Collegiate Press.