Jack Curry, FCRH ’86, arrived at Fordham as an undergraduate hoping to play college baseball. The Jersey City native had played at Hudson Catholic High School, but after one practice with the Fordham team, he realized he was in over his head. He signed up for The Ram and WFUV the next day.

Now, that experience as a student journalist provides the foundation for a major league media career. Since 2010, Curry has been an analyst for the New York Yankees on the YES Network. He’s also the co-author of two best-selling books with Yankee legends. He worked with Derek Jeter on The Life You Imagine: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams (Crown, 2000), and his latest book, written with David Cone and published last month, is Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher (Grand Central).

Curry had been thinking about the project with Cone for close to 20 years, from the time when he was a Yankees beat writer and a national baseball correspondent for The New York Times. He wanted to write a book with a pitcher with a creative mind, one who could really explain the mentality needed to master the craft, and he thought Cone—whom his former teammate Paul O’Neill calls “as smart and gutsy as any pitcher I ever played behind,” and whom former pitcher and author Jim Abbott calls one “our generation’s finest and most clever pitchers”—was the perfect fit for the job.

While Cone may be best remembered for his perfect game with the Yankees in 1999—a feat that has only been accomplished 23 times over the course of Major League Baseball’s 144 years—Full Count is full of anecdotes and insights that highlight his place as one of his generation’s greats: a five-time All-Star, five-time World Series champion, and the 1994 Cy Young Award winner.

With the assistance of Curry, a four-time Emmy winner, Cone tells of his working-class upbringing in Kansas City and of the mental and physical demands of a 17-year baseball career. Of particular note are chapters in which Cone describes playing for the thrilling but hard-partying Mets teams in the late 1980s, the unique nonverbal conversations performed by pitchers and catchers to try to outsmart hitters, and being part of a dynastic Yankees team from 1995 through 2000.

Throughout Full Count, Cone and Curry weave a story of all that it takes to play baseball at a high level for as long as Cone did, from his brainy approach to facing batters—like staring in a certain way at his catcher instead of shaking his head to disapprove of suggested pitches, so as not to tip off the batter—to his off-the-field commitment to studying the game. Baseball fans will walk away from the book with a deeper understanding both of this particular player and of the science of pitching. From throwing off batters to finding ways to recreate a spitball without illegally adding moisture to the ball, there are many lessons to be learned for young players and fans of the game alike.

As Curry says, “Thanks to Coney’s insight in this book, I now have a doctorate in pitching.”

Ringing the room were enlargements of front pages. They conveyed the scope of events covered by the paper across the decades: world wars, McCarthyism, civil rights, student protests, Watergate, 9/11, and more.

Then there was the front page of the very first issue of The Ram, published on February 7, 1918. The layout is crisp and the tone is serious. Alas, the viewpoint expressed by the lead headline reveals the perils of composing first drafts of history. It quotes Joseph A. Mulry, S.J., then president of Fordham, who had a reputation for fiery sermons on patriotic themes: “This War Will Purify Soul of the Nation.”

Father Mulry was referring to World War I, then deep into its fourth year, which was time enough to have figured out that rather than a rite of purification, the stalemate in Europe was more like mindlessly mechanized slaughter, an exercise in futility and stupidity. With hindsight we might forgive Father Mulry, especially given that his underlying thesis was that “no part of the body politic shall oppress another.”

Practicing the Discipline of Verification

The Ram‘s first editors were trying to speak to a cause then vital to Fordham students, some hundreds of whom were serving on or near the front and whose need for news from campus was the reason for founding a weekly in the first place. (That’s right, The Ram began as a chronicle for troops overseas of academic doings in the rural northeast Bronx.) But as any journalist will tell you, it’s often difficult to interpret events in the midst of their unfolding.

“If you’re a news reporter, you need to hope for humility,” said former Ram editor-in-chief Jim Dwyer, FCRH ’79, to more than 100 guests at the paper’s centennial dinner. “And own your own mistakes.”

Dwyer is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a columnist for The New York Times who has written on everything from the Byzantine machinations of the MTA to improving care for HIV-positive pregnant women. If anyone could get away with tossing bouquets of self-congratulation, it’d be this guy on this night. Instead he extolled “the journalism of verification, where you can see the structures that hold up the stories, where sources are named and facts are corroborated.”

Journalists have a phrase for such high standards: a pain in the rear. But insofar as journalists practice them, even revere them, it’s because they came across someone early on who insisted they be followed in their novice attempts at editing and reporting—or in managing a newspaper, as slapstick and earnest an enterprise as humans have devised. For the people in Bepler Commons, that formative education would’ve occurred while scrambling on deadline to put out The Ram.

Dwyer also name-checked his former professor and long-time mentor, Ray Schroth, S.J. Beginning in the late 1960s, Father Schroth taught journalism at Fordham and other Jesuit colleges for almost 50 years. A kind of anti-Mulry, Father Schroth instructed students to question official statements from powerful people in justification of their actions—on issues ranging from potholes to low-level weed arrests to war. Not that these explanations are always wrong, just that they need to be checked.

One way journalists do this is by examining a policy’s concrete effect on the lives of non-powerful people, and then amplifying the voices of these people in the press—after checking their claims, too.

Calling Out Untruths, Winning Trust

That was a theme of the speech by Louis D. Boccardi, FCRH ’58. He’s a Ram alumnus and former president and CEO of the Associated Press, the world’s largest news organization. Boccardi started his career when newsrooms racketed with the sound of manual typewriters and ended it by transitioning AP into the internet age.

“’Fairness and accuracy’ is a piety, but it’s the start of what we do,” he said. “And when we find an untruth, we should label it clearly so. In the end, our only claim on the reader’s or viewer’s attention, and on their support for what we do, is that they trust what we say.”

The value of telling the truth against all obstacles was another theme of the night. Solid reporting requires familiarity with the methods of pursuing truth. That’s where The Ram and its equivalents come in. Students sign up to practice the full menu of journalistic skills, from rapid fact-gathering to investigative techniques. Students then put their stories out into the world, where sometimes they stand up to scrutiny and sometimes they don’t. Either way, lessons learned.

The result can be high honors. Besides Jim Dwyer, two other Ram editors went on to earn a Pulitzer Prize: Arthur Daley, FCRH ’26, for sports reporting at The Times, and Loretta Tofani, FCRH ’75, for her Washington Post series “Rape in the County Jail.” Tofani was one of the first women to serve as editor-in-chief of The Ram. Many women have since followed her in the role.

The latest is Theresa Schliep, a 21-year-old Fordham senior and editor of The Ram’s 100^th edition. Schliep presides over more than a physical newspaper. She manages a multimedia platform that, more often than not, lives up to the standard of pain-in the-rear reporting.

When asked why she goes to the trouble, she says, “It’s our right as Americans, and as people, to say what we want to say—factually and accurately.”

There it is: evidence that a new generation has submitted to the practice of digging up and offering the journalistic truth, of winning trust through verification, corroboration, and clear prose. In closing, a benediction: May they prosper as they make their mistakes and publicly correct them, and as they doggedly call the powerful to account. It’s an especially hostile time to aspire to be a journalist. God bless those who would do it. 

—Jim O’Grady, FCRH ’82, a former Ram reporter and editor, is a features reporter at WNYC.

UPDATE: In December and January, several New York elected officials—from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and Mayor Bill de Blasio to Governor Andrew Cuomo (FCRH ’79), U.S. Rep. José E. Serrano, and Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand—saluted The Ram on its 100th anniversary. Congressman Serrano’s message was published in the Congressional Record on December 20.

Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Loretta Tofani as the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of The Ram. She was preceded by Mary Anne Leonard, TMC ’70, who achieved that distinction in 1969.

It was the former Vincent Office Building at 302 Broadway, “that narrow, old building with the slow elevators” but “kindly elevator operators,” in the words of Maggie Cumming Casciato, UGE ’68.

It’s now 50 years since she earned her bachelor’s degree with one of the last Fordham classes to be educated at 302 Broadway, which served Fordham students for 25 years amid the hustle and bustle of Manhattan’s historic heart.

Situated two blocks from City Hall and a 10-minute walk from where Fordham’s Jesuits first founded a school in Manhattan in the 19th century, 302 Broadway was the last of Fordham’s locations in the lower part of the borough, the final redoubt of what might be called the Jesuit university of Old New York.

“Another New York City Skyscraper”

The Vincent Office Building was constructed for the estate of John Jacob Astor in 1899, designed in a Romanesque revival style. Elevators had only been around for a few decades, and a brochure boasted that the ones in the Vincent would run “day and night”—patrolled by watchmen, no less. Other amenities included “filtered iced water” available on every floor.

The Vincent was an apartment building before Fordham bought it to house its City Hall Division following the expiration of the University’s lease in the nearby Woolworth Building. With the purchase, Fordham “realized one of her fondest hopes,” in part because of the building’s proximity to transit lines, The Ram said in its Sept. 10, 1943, issue.

The building housed the schools of law, business, and education. When she went there to register for classes in the early 1960s, the 14-story building “just seemed like another New York City skyscraper,” said Casciato, a native of Elizabeth, New Jersey, who had become enamored with Manhattan while growing up.

But the building’s location was choice. “The neighborhood was our campus,” she said—there was an Italian place across the street offering a plate of spaghetti for 99 cents, and a nearby pub, Joe Maxwell’s, “where a lot of friendships developed” as students nursed a drink for a while before class. (The drinking age was 18 at the time.) A few blocks away was the Brooklyn Bridge, where she used to go on walks to be alone with her boyfriend.

And next door—until the paper folded in 1950—was the New York Sun building, where John Payne, GABELLI ’51, once got a welcome surprise. After making a sketch of 302 Broadway’s front entrance for the Maroon Quill, the business school’s newspaper, he walked next door to show it to the Sun’s art editor, who gave him a letterpress engraved zinc plate of the drawing the next day, along with several proof prints.

“I still have the plate as a reminder of how nice and accommodating he had been,” Payne said. “302 Broadway was a wonderful location, and it opened some doors for me while I was a student.”

Every student at 302 was a commuter, and some lived at home with their families, Casciato noted—“We didn’t know what we were missing in terms of campus life.” But the urban “campus” held many delights, such as visiting museums for art class, singing with other students for the Christmas tree lighting at City Hall with the mayor, or visiting Chinatown and Little Italy, she said.

“C’mon in the House”

In the building itself, there were hangouts on the 14th floor—where students would play bridge or study—and in a sublevel lounge, she said. There was a first-floor meeting room with a bare-bones stage, “just an elevated platform,” where the Thalians, an acting troupe, would perform, Casciato said. One former member, Gerard McLoughlin, UGE, ’58, GSE ’60, said the Thalians won a one-act festival that pitted them against all Jesuit schools on the East Coast.

And traveling between all the floors was made memorable by the people who ran the elevators, who were “always very friendly and cordial,” Casciato said. “C’mon in the house” was the familiar greeting of one well-known operator, named Hodge, McLoughlin said. Casciato recalled how the operators would stop the elevator a foot below the floor and then crank the car upward by hand, inch by inch.

But the elevators didn’t always make it to every floor, The Ram noted in a Dec. 3, 1968, article about the impending move to the new Lincoln Center campus. The building was increasingly decrepit and crowded. Nonetheless, some students lamented its loss, describing the sense of tight-knit community created when all the students circulated in the same close quarters.

And there was also an urban vibe—endearing to at least one student—created by police cars, fire engines, and noisy demonstrations at City Hall. Atmosphere also came from the sound of the IRT subway “passing on the other side of the thin wall,” the article said.

Whatever the conditions, students were transformed, and moved on to become dedicated professionals in education and other fields.

“Many wonderful professors taught excellent classes to eager students, many of whom were the first in their families to attend college,” Casciato said. “A great number of those students went on to become truly dedicated teachers and school administrators in New York City and elsewhere.”

Fond Memories

Today the building is long gone, replaced by the immense Ted Weiss Federal Building, but it remains the home campus for many alumni, if only in memory.

The Lincoln Center campus is “like a school I’ve never been to,” Casciato said. “And I don’t identify with the Rose Hill campus either, because I was only there a few times,” including for her graduation in June 1968.

Fifty years later, she is looking forward to reconnecting with former classmates at the 302 Broadway reunion being held as part of Fordham’s Jubilee weekend, which takes place from June 1 to 3 on the Rose Hill campus. (The reunion takes place Saturday, June 2, at 2:30 p.m. in Hughes Hall at Rose Hill. Alumni of 302 Broadway are also welcome at the Block Party at Lincoln Center on June 7.) Casciato stays in close touch with several former classmates; in 2015 they all took a cruise together on the Queen Mary to mark the 50th anniversary of when they all met at age 17.

The building at 302 Broadway “holds a lot of wonderful memories for us, four years of growing up, maturing,” said Casciato, a French major who later moved to Connecticut with her husband to start a family and worked as a management accountant.

“I look back on it fondly,” she said. “It was an old ramshackle building, nothing to be proud of, but what we made it inside was very important.”

Film and television major Colleen Granberg was tasked with lightening the mood as the 2018 Lady of the Manor. In a speech peppered with jabs at food, dorm life and WiFi service, she compared Encaenia to the Oscars, because it’s an honor just to be invited.

“Or at least, that is what you will tell your parents later tonight when they ask you why exactly you did not receive any prizes tonight,” she joked.

Some of the biggest laughs came from Granberg’s observation that the University’s severe weather alerts seem to always note that the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses will be open, but that the Louis Calder Center is closed.

“I don’t know where exactly the Calder Center is, but it must have the most dangerous weather conditions of all time. It’s like one of those towns in rural Alabama that doesn’t have any plows so when it snows like, half an inch, they have to shut down the whole city, except it’s in Westchester,” she said, poking fun at Fordham’s biological field station, which is located 25 miles north of the city.

“I have been let down too many times by those emails. I kind of want to go to the Calder Center just to see what’s happening there, but now I’m too spiteful. I wish everyone at the Calder Center well, but our relationship is beyond repair.”

Valedictorian Mimi Sillings, a psychology major who commuted from Pleasantville for four years, joked that ‘Fordham is my school. Metro-North is my campus.’ She implored her classmates to appreciate that the “good old days” are actually now.

Sillings said she stumbled badly in a class her first semester, but when her mother gave her a necklace that said “This too shall pass,” Sillings said it became a talisman that provided her with a surprising source of strength. At some point, it broke.

“With sadness, I presented it to her. But my mom smiled. I was taken aback. She said, ‘Don’t you see, Mimi? You don’t need the necklace anymore.’ She was right, as moms often are,” she said.

“As a freshman, ‘This too shall pass’ was reassurance that my current struggle was only temporary. Now, on the eve of our commencement, ‘This too shall pass’ is a somber reminder of time’s fleeting nature.”

Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, told students that because they’d finished classes but have not yet graduated, they were in “a thin place” –where two worlds come together and are both seen and unseen.

“In Celtic spirituality, a thin place is where the ‘distance between heaven and earth collapses,’ a sacred place where you can feel the transcendence and the immanence of God,” she said.

“It can be confusing and unsettling to be in a thin place, but it can also be transformative: This experience can jolt you to see yourself—and the world—in a new way.”

It’s a good time she said, to reconsider what it means to “become men and women for others. It is not about being nice, nor is it a feel-good marketing slogan or a form of secular social activism,” she said.

“As men and women for others, you are called to be present to and in solidarity with others; in fact, to see them not as ‘others’ who need your help but as people, as individuals, as children of God; and through this shift in focus, you see God,” she said.

If it seems overwhelming, she said, consider two pieces of advice: Do something very well, even if it’s small, that will bring about positive change, and let God’s grace enter and do the rest. And, she said, fall in love.

“I ask you to fall in love, to stay in love, to act with love, and to let love guide you in becoming true men and women for and with others,” she said.

Mast presented two students with special awards. The Claver Award, which is granted by the Jesuits of Fordham to a senior who best represents Fordham’s dedication to community service, was given to Meghan Townsend, who spent almost a year living at St. Joseph House, the soup kitchen and homeless shelter founded by Catholic activist Dorothy Day.

The Fordham College Alumni Association Award, which recognizes a senior who embodies the “Fordham spirit,” was awarded to Erin Shanahan, whom Dean Mast praised for her leadership at the student-run newspaper The Ram.

“In a period marked by the rise of fake news and increasing incivility in both our public life and on college campuses, The Ram under her leadership and guidance strove to uphold high standards of fact-based journalism, took on difficult and controversial issues with skill and nuance, and encouraged a campus atmosphere of civility and dialogue,” she said.

The Ram, which is based at Rose Hill, won three plaudits from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Erin Shanahan won second place in the secondary news coverage category for her February 2016 story “Fordham Prep Copes with Student Deaths.” Erin Shanahan, Laura Sanicola, and Joe Vitale won second place in the planned newswriting category for their November 2015 story “Fordham Responds to Two More Bias Incidents.”

The editorial board won third place for its April 2016 editorial “What Administration Does Not Care If You Know” and a certificate of merit for its October 2016 editorial “Unfair Adjunct Wages Go Against Jesuit Values.”

The paper also received two awards from the American Scholastic Press Association: First place with special merit in the category of Colleges and Universities with an Enrollment of 2,501 and over, and Most Outstanding University Newspaper for 2016-2017.

Sanicola, who was the Ram’s editor in 2016, said the awards were validation of improvements the paper has made in the past years, in terms of the quality of its journalism and its dedication to printing the truth and breaking news.

She was also gratified for being recognized on an individual level.

“That piece [on bias incidents]took so many hours, and it was a sensitive subject so we were struggling to make sure that we got everything right, and make sure that everyone was presented in a fair light,” she said.

“I think we did that, while at the same time presenting the story quickly and accurately.”

At the Lincoln Center campus, the staff of The Observer was honored with three awards from the New York Press Association. In the associations’ Better College Newspaper contest, the paper was honored with second place in the category of general excellence, third place in editorial writing, and second place for best website.

Outgoing editor Ben Moore said the past year offered a lot of consequence to cover, from the presidential election to faculty/administration contract negotiations, and he was glad to see the group effort reflected in the awards the paper won.

“Everything from the website to the editorials, and just the paper in general, are awards that require everyone on staff to be on board and contributing to the paper at a fairly high level,” he said.

While artist Martha Clippinger, FCRH ’05, was on a Fulbright grant in Oaxaca, Mexico, during the summer of 2014, two fellow Fordham alumni came to visit her—her father, Charlie Clippinger, FCRH ’70, and her uncle, Scott Clippinger, GABELLI ’65.

Martha introduced her family to several of the local artists she had met while studying the use of color in local Zapotec craft traditions in and around Oaxaca.

Scott was particularly impressed by Jacobo and María Ánegles’ workshop, which specializes in brightly painted wooden animal sculptures called alebrijes. After returning home, he asked his niece to commission a piece from the workshop, and let her choose the animal.

Soon afterward, Scott received his traditional Zapotec Fordham ram, pictured above.

“It’s a striking piece of art to remember the experience, and an appropriate choice of memento of a visit by a Fordham group,” says Scott.

In fact, the Clippingers’ connection to their alma mater predates even the Fordham Ram, which became the University’s official mascot in 1893. At a graduation ceremony on the Rose Hill campus in 1852, when Fordham was still St. John’s College, the Clippingers’ ancestor John McQuade received his diploma from Fordham’s founder, Archbishop John Hughes.

It’s clear why Martha, whose middle name is McQuade, chose a ram for her uncle’s alebrije. The artist’s choice of maroon as a primary color for the piece was simply fate.

The Ram, which is based at the Rose Hill campus, and the Observer, which is at Lincoln Center, were tied for the honor, ahead of the Daily Orange at Syracuse University, and behind the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily.

Cornell University’s Daily Sun took top honors.

“We are in a struggle,” he said. “The traditional, ordinary, pedestrian way of doing things has got to be junked.”

While it’s impossible to know how many Fordham students Sargent inspired that day, or on subsequent visits, his words did make a lasting impression on at least one. Ann Sheehan, UGE ’65, executive director of Pennsylvania’s BCTV and a former Peace Corp volunteer, applied for the program immediately after Shriver’s address.

She posted about Shriver’s visit to Rose Hill on her station’s blog, two days after Shriver died at the age of 95.

“The idea of the Peace Corps had intrigued me since it was first talked about, and although I don’t remember anything specific that he said, Sarge hooked me completely. There were applications available right there, in the gym, and I made my friend wait for me while I filled it out, never dreaming that I would be accepted.”

As director of the Peace Corps, Shriver capitalized on the new and exciting spirit of volunteerism President Kennedy inspired in the nation, especially its younger citizens. Within a few years, thousands of young Americans were working in poor countries around the world.

Shriver’s Rose Hill appearance was part of the University’s American Age Lecture Series, which strives to embody the spirit of the Fordham community through programs that educate, stimulate and enhance the college experience.

Here’s a hint: it’s got four hooves and bleats.

Mario Gabelli (GSB ’65) used the occasion ofhis guest lecture on Dec. 1 to restore a part of Fordham’s athletic and campus tradition in the form of a live ram mascot.

Its appearance at the McGinley Center that afternoon was greeted with stunned looks, cheers and more than a few fist bumps from students who got to pet and pose with the Fordham icon.

“It was an unbelievable experience,” said Clifford Philogene, a freshman in Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH).

“When you think of a ram, you think of brute force,” he said. “You touch the wool and you expect it to be a little bit rough. But it melted in my hand. It’s like cotton candy.”

In much the same way that rock concerts never begin on time, the ram’s appearance was pushed back from its noon start while finishing touches were made to its tent outside McGinley.

After resting comfortably in its very own “ram van” across the street, “Buster” emerged just after 12:30 p.m. to the astonishment of passers by.

Once inside the tent, it donned the mantle of Rameses, a felt-and-wool blanket emblazoned with three Block F letters. The garment was made to replicate the ones worn by Fordham rams of decades past.

Sensing the moment’s import, the ram began hopping about in a small circle, tugging at the rein held by its handler, Bambi Brook of the Dawn Animal Agency.

About a dozen students witnessed the quasi-coronation. Scores more would seek out the ram as word began to spread across Rose Hill. Still others took to the tent to escape the day’s downpour. All were quick to register their impressions.

“That’s really cool.”

“I love the ram!”

“Can I touch him?”

“He’s soooooo cute!”

“Whoa! Go ram!”

“I think he should be here all the time,” said Michelle Ioannou, an FCRH sophomore. “Having an actual ram would help school spirit, especially at events like Homecoming and Spring Fling.”

Anna Gildea, also a sophomore in FCRH, agreed.

“I told my mom about the ram, and her first response was, ‘Where did they get him, and why wasn’t he at all of the football games?’” she said.

If Gabelli wanted some extra publicity for his lecture, he chose the best way to spread the word. Students who came to see the ram were told of the event, and left the tent with Gabelli School of Business t-shirts and magnets.

“Come see Mario Gabelli at 5 p.m. in Keating First. He brought the ram back. He brought it back for you,” was the rallying cry of Angela Giovine (GSB ’04, GBA ’05), an event planner who works with Fordham’s business schools.

For its part, Buster showed remarkable poise in the face of near-constant camera flashes and adulation from its admiring public.

The specimen was eight or nine years old and weighed just shy of 200 pounds, Brook said. She explained that Buster’s double horns were a trait of Jacob Sheep, while his nicely formed curls were a product of his Suffolk lineage.

Though appreciative of a chance to mug for the camera with a live animal, the vast majority of students were unfamiliar with the history of Rameses, the live ram mascot that Fordham housed at Rose Hill for decades.

Mary Burke, Ph.D., clinical associate professor of economics at Fordham and a graduate of the University’s Thomas More College, said she remembers those days.

“He was over at the edge of campus between Martyrs’ and the railroad tracks in a little brick house all to himself,” Burke said.

“One of my students told me yesterday that there would be a ram here and I decided I had to go see him,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. He’s handsome.”

After standing patiently for more than two hours, a break in the storm allowed the ram to be walked around the Rose Hill grounds.

Gabelli himself arrived not long after, and helped to escort Buster to its second location on the terrace in front of Keating Hall. He said the ram was a fond memory of his time at Rose Hill that he was happy to share with today’s students.

“It’s different than the ram I remember,” Gabelli said. “but it’s a nostalgia trip.”

So striking was the animal that it drew high praise from Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“He’s a handsome beast,” he said. “Does he mind being petted?”

Father McShane said he remembers attending games when a live mascot was present. The demise of the live ram on campus, he said, occurred when students from another college stole it and painted it green.

The fee for the ram’s appearance will go to the Sanctuary for Animals, a home in Westtown, N.Y. for rescued animals that Brook’s parents opened in 1959.

“Today, Buster helped buy some groceries for the other animals,” she said.

Though Buster’s appearance was a singular event, many who met the “Fordham ram” said the experience will resonate for a long time.

“There should be a ram farm on Edwards Parade—rams walking around everywhere,” said Clifford Philogene, before quickly adding, “as long as they’re tame.”

Senior Staff Writer Janet Sassi contributed to this report.

Joseph McLaughlin

Fiscina, a native of North Massapequa N.Y.,  is a double major in communications and American studies and serves as editor-in-chief of the Rose Hill campus student newspaper, The Ram. She has held internships at CBS Television and the New York Post, and has worked as a staff writer for the Liberty Forumpolitical journal.

She is the 21st recipient of the prestigious award, given annually to a communications student who embodies the spirit of Walsh, Fordham’s Patterson Professor of Journalism and longtime faculty adviser to The Ram.

“Journalism, for Amanda, is not merely a likely career path,” said Michael Latham, Ph.D., interim dean of FCRH. “It is a passion and a vocation in the best sense. It is a calling that will enable her to serve a wider public good.”

Dean Latham also praised the honoree for her rigorous academic curriculum, her community volunteerism and her work as a liturgical coordinator and Eucharistic minister for campus ministry.

Looking back on her term as editor-in-chief, Fiscina recounted the emotional highs and lows of running a weekly paper while being a full-time Fordham student. She recalled times when layout software froze during production, when writers did not meet deadlines and when the printer sent her issues with “two different shades of maroon.”

Even when frustrations seemed piled high, Fiscina said, she still believed in the “power of the written word.”

“I have learned every nut and bolt that holds this University together and even got to interview some of them,” she said. “I’ve learned your harshest critics are actually your biggest fans. And in the end, I even loved all the highly critical e-mails and letters . . . because it shows we sparked interest.”

A group of Walsh’s former students created the award—one of the oldest scholarships at Fordham—in the 1970s, and awardees are chosen by an alumni committee. On hand to honor Fiscina were committee heads Warren Spellman, FCRH ’56, and Frank Corbin,  FCRH ’50, and committee member Richard Hake, FCRH ’91, a news correspondent for WNYC-FM.

Hake, the second recipient of the Walsh scholarship, welcomed Fiscina to the group of talented awardees that include Elena DiFiore, FCRH ’90, associate producer for 48 Hours, and Jonathan Vigliotti, FCRH ’05, correspondent for WPLG-TV Miami.

“A look at the list (of awardees) shows that we are all still working in media,” Hake said.

Fiscina thanked Ram adviser Beth Knobel, Ph.D., assistant professor of communications and media studies, for her support both “when I hated The Ram at 3 in the morning and when I loved it at 3 in the afternoon.”

Volume 90 of The Ram, which was published during the 2008 calendar year, received the designation of Most Outstanding University Newspaper from the ASPA and won first place among newspapers from colleges and universities with an enrollment of 2,501 or greater.

The 2009 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Awards went to Mary Young (FCRH ’10) who won third place in the category of “personal opinion in on-campus issues for newspapers.”

Claire Borders (FCRH ’11) won a certificate of merit for “entertainment reviews in newspapers.” The paper also won a certificate of merit for “overall design in tabloid format for newspapers.”

Will Moccia (FCRH ’09), editor in chief of The Ram for Volume 90, said the awards were a testament to the hard work of the paper’s staffers, who, he said, have not been honored like this previously.

“This is a win—not just for Volume 90—but also for all of the editors of the previous volumes who helped bring The Ram to the level where it is today,” Moccia said.

Likewise, Amanda Fiscina (FCRH ’10), the current editor-in-chief, credited last year’s overhaul of The Ram’s templates, fonts and styles with lending a much more professional look to the paper. Likewise, the paper is giving more attention to serious topics, as evidenced by a one-on-one interview with Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“We really focused on generating more serious and interesting content on topics pertinent to the Fordham community,” she said.