It is wonderful news that President McShane has reversed his position on the unionization of contingent faculty at Fordham because, he notes, it is "the right thing to do." In his announcement, he recognized that "organized labor has deep roots in Catholic social justice teachings."  Social justice is  one of the pillars in the university's mission and social justice is what motivated a group of students to rally and protest in support of those of their professors on April 27. These students are an extraordinary group who are in many ways the very best and most dedicated student-scholars that Fordham has nurtured. They are honors students who have undertaken and excelled in the most challenging intellectual paths we offer, and they are award winners whose writings have dazzled their professors.  Above all, they are students who, through their actions, strove to embody the Jesuit ideal of "men and women for others." Their collective pursuit of ...

Friday afternoon May 19, nineteen chairs of Arts and Sciences departments sent the letter below to Fordham President  Joseph McShane, S.J. Rev. Joseph McShane, S.J. President, Fordham University Dear Father McShane: The Office of Student Affairs recently carried out disciplinary procedures against student protestors in accordance with a set of policies and procedures we believe to be fundamentally unfair. The regulations on student speech, protests, and demonstrations are restrictive, and the disciplinary process with its closed door hearings in which one person serves as accuser, prosecutor, and judge is inquisitorial. This issue needs your immediate attention, but even though you spoke out this morning about the need for dialogue, on this particular matter all we have heard is your silence. We, a group of concerned department chairs, urge you to speak out publicly and to the entire community on behalf of fair and just procedures and governance in keeping with ou...

On Monday evening, the 14 accused students received letters from the administration officials who had held their hearings. These hearings consisted of one-on-one, closed door meetings with either the Dean of Students or his designated representative. Accused students were not permitted to bring faculty advocates, student supporters, or anyone else to accompany them. Supporters were kept outside the Student Life Offices; in some cases faculty members from barred from even entering the buildings where the hearings were taking place. Nor were students allowed any witnesses in these "hearings." Even so, some of them took as long as 90 minutes. Some but not all of the students have shared the letters they received from university officials announcing their verdicts and sanctions. It is unsurprising that these patently unfair proceedings--which are standard operating procedure described in Fordham's Student Handbook--seem to have resulted in "convictions" on all ...

Professor Barry Rosenfeld, Professor and Chair in Fordham's Psychology Department, sent this letter to Fordham President Joseph McShane on May 12, 2017.  Dear President McShane: I have deliberated on whether an email to you is appropriate, but feel compelled to speak out on behalf of our students. I have no doubt that you are concerned about the deterioration in campus climate that we have all witnessed this year. What began as a problem in the relationship between the faculty and administration has now expanded to (if not been eclipsed by) even more serious problems between the student body and the administration. My email is a request that you speak to our community about this situation - now. The absence of your voice is precisely what pushed the faculty into the no-confidence vote last month (a decision that none of us took lightly, no matter how we ultimately chose to vote). We (speaking on behalf of the faculty) perceived a lack of leadership from you in what appears...

Jesuit education unfolds against the backdrop of what Jesuits call cura personalis -- a care for the individual person and care for the whole person.  Within this context of reverential love and concern, students are challenged.  Challenged, they awaken to their real potential. Awakened, they are transformed.  Transformed, they are empowered. Empowered, they emerge from their experience on campus as recognizable Jesuit graduates: they are men and women of competence, conscience, compassion and commitment to the cause of the human family.  At the heart of their awakening and transformation is their encounter (both in their studies and in the care that they receive from their teachers) with the central belief of Christian Humanism, a belief that is, in turn, at the very heart of Jesuit education.  This belief is at one and the same time simple and profound: that human life is not at all what poor MacBeth thought it to be, namely a tale told by an idiot, full of ...

This testimonial was sent to the blog by one of the participants in the demonstration. For obvious reasons, its author prefers to remain anonymous.  On Thursday, April 27th, my friends and I had planned a peaceful demonstration in an attempt to talk to Father McShane about having a free and fair election for the adjuncts and contingent faculty. I was asked to emcee the demonstration, which I agreed to, due to my experience with public speaking. The plans for the demonstration were nothing but peaceful. Our intentions were to enter Cunniffe House in a respectful fashion and make our presence known until Father McShane agreed to speak with us. Everyone was on the same page and nobody was instructed to behave in a manner that deviated from our plan. We reached the steps of Cunniffe House. There were public safety officers surrounding the steps and the door, but the door was nonetheless open, so from what I could see, at least 4 students found openings and got inside the doorwa...