TRADITION

. . . the newsletter of the Fordham College Alumni Association

Fordham University at Lincoln Center, New York, N.Y. 10023

October 1994

The Voice of Fordham University. Aware that radio influenced the thinking of a vast number of Americans, the University opened its own radio station, WFUV-FM (90.7 on the FM dial), in 1947. The station, which had an effective range of forty miles and, on occasion, was heard as far away as Miami, broadcast news summaries, classical and light music, theater and book reviews, round table discussions, full length plays, recorded opera, sportscasts, Òair collegeÓ lectures and Mass direct from the Blue Chapel in Keating Hall. In recent years, under the direction of Dr. Ralph A. Jennings, the general manager, the station has developed into a 50,000-watt public radio station pumping Fordham sports, music, news and commentary out to 12-14 million people in the New York City area. A professional management staff now provides on-air and technical training to over 25 Fordham students. Funded by grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and listener donations, WFUV services several different ethnic groups, notably the Polish, Irish, German, Ukrainian, Indian and Italian communities, and its Saturday ethnic programming, which no other station in the New York metropolitan area provides, attracts 40-50,000 listeners. Midday programming during the week concentrates on adult alternative albums. On weekday evenings, WFUV concentrates on world music, which, according to Jennings, gives Òexposure to artists who do not get exposure anywhere else.Ó Students in the sports department are trained by Marty Glickman, the former NBC commentator and inventor of basketball play by play. The stationÕs success in training students is evidenced by its alumni which includes Vince Scully Ô49, the Voice of the Dodgers; Chip Cippola Ô50; Charles Osgood Ô54, the host of CBS Sunday Morning; Emmy award winning actor Alan Alda Ô56; Louis Boccardi Ô58, the president of Associated Press; sportswriter Malcolm Moran Ô75; Jim Monaghan Ô78; Michael Kay Ô82, the Voice of the Yankees; Mike Breen Ô83, the comedic genius behind the Imus in the Morning program; sportscaster Bob Papa Ô86, Michele Gillan Ô90 of ABC News and a host of Emmy Award winners, including Steve Dunlop Ô77, Marie Hickey Ô83 and Dick Brennan Ô83.

Such is the power of WFUV that, one need not even possess an FM radio to receive its broadcasts. Pete Fornatale Ô67 the folk/rock historian of K-ROCK, a former WFUV broadcaster, advises that, during the 60Õs, many listeners wrote WFUV to advise that they were able to receive the stationÕs broadcasts on their televisions, on their record players and even on their refrigerators. One listener considered institutionalization of his eighty-year old grandmother, who insisted that her refrigerator was talking to her, until he discovered that a voice was indeed talking through the refrigerator and that the voice was PeteÕs.

To comply with Federal Communication Commission guidelines that seek to reduce public exposure to potentially hazardous radio frequencies, the federal government has required the University to move WFUVÕs transmission antenna from the top of Keating Hall. After an exhaustive search for an alternate location, the University obtained a permit from the New York City Building Department and attempted to move the antenna to a site on the northeast corner of Jack Coffey field, 100 yards from the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory of the New York Botanical Garden. The Botanical Garden, which occupies land seized from the University in 1889, protested that the proposed 480 foot radio antenna was excessive, monstrous and unsightly, would ÒdistortÓ the view of the Conservatory, would Òjarring(ly) intrudeÓ on Òboth (the) esthetic and environmentalÓ experience of the Garden and would spoil Òour plans for that whole part of the garden.Ó The University does not believe that it needs the Botanical GardenÕs permission to build on its own campus and countered that WFUV serves 150,000 listeners a week, that the antenna would not block light or air, that the antenna was absolutely necessary and that no suitable alternative site was available. Lawyers for the Botanical Garden persuaded the Building Department that the antenna, which casts a minimal shadow, pierced Òthe sky exposure plane,Ó and the Department blocked completion of the antenna. The University has appealed the Building DepartmentÕs ruling and is concerned that, if it cannot complete construction, WFUV may be silenced after 47 years on the air.

In appreciation of the service which WFUV-FM provides to its listening audience and the students whom it trains, TRADITION urges its readers to write to New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani in support of WFUV.

Impact. By accounts a good man and a fine shortstop, young Frank Spellman Ô11 distinguished himself on Rose Hill as a student, as a member of the baseball, dramatics, oratory and tennis teams and as a member of the sodality. In later years, SpellmanÕs Jesuit training served him well. As Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church of the title Sts. John and Paul from 1939 to 1967, Spellman was the spiritual leader to millions of New York area Roman Catholics and the military vicar of the Armed Forces of the United States. As the most powerful churchman in America, he shepherded his flock through decades of change and brought them into the post-Vatican II era.

Rev. George J. McMahon, S.J., the University chaplain, announces that the annual All Souls Mass in memory of departed friends and alumni will be celebrated on Saturday, November 12, 1994 at 10:30 a.m. in the University Church. Contact Alumni Relations (212-636-6520) for details.

Minister of Religious Matters Nick OÕNeill Ô55 advises that the annual retreat weekend will be held at Mt. Manressa and St. Ignatius Retreat Houses from March 11 to 13, 1995. Contact Alumni Relations (212-636-6527) for details.

Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., The College Dean, who continues to incur TRADITIONÕÕs displeasure by refusing to compel senior theology and philosophy students to wear senior robes, advises that the annual DeanÕs Day celebration will be held at Rose Hill on Saturday, April 22, 1995. Please submit nominations for alumni achievement awards to Alumni Relations (212-636-6527) by November 4, 1994.

Fr. McShane reminds alumni that he will host two dinners in the Fall 1994 semester and two dinners in the Spring 1995 semester for alumni interested in discussing issues of concern to The College. Contact Alumni Relations (212-636-6527) for details.

The Faculty. Robert J. OÕConnell, S.J., professor of history, published ÒSexuality in St. AugustineÓ in No. 16 of the Encounter Series. . . . John V. Antush, associate professor of English, who has won a Fulbright to teach in Ghent, has edited and written the introduction to Nuestro New York: an Anthology of Puerto Rican Plays. . . . Avery Dulles, S.J., Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, delivered the annual Flora Levy Lecture, entitled, ÒJohn Foster Dulles: His Philosophical and Religious Heritage,Ó at the University of Southwestern Louisiana at Lafayette . . . . Elizabeth A. Johnson, associate professor of theology, published the essay, ÒWisdom Was Made Flesh and Pitched Her Tent Among Us,Ó in Reconstructing the Christ Symbol: Essays in Feminist Christology. . . . Jay D. Manicini, associate professor of physics and chairman of the department, delivered a seminar, ÒProperties of Moments ExpansionÓ at the University of Zurich. . . . Asit B. Mukherjee, professor of biology, coauthored a research paper, ÒCytogenetic and molecular analysis of 6q deletions in BurkittÕs lymphoma cell linesÓ in the journal Genes, Chromosomes and Cancer. . . . Maryanne Kowaleski, associate professor of history and chairwoman of the department, recently published an edition of The Local Customs Accounts of the Port of Exeter, 1266-1321. . . . Arleen Pancza-Graham, adjunct faculty in the department of art and music, curated the exhibition, ÒProvencetown Papers: Selections from New Collections.Ó. . . Henry M. Schwalbenberg, assistant professor of economics, published ÒEconomic Growth and the Rise of Protectionism and Urban Unrest in Developing EconomiesÓ in Open Economies Review.

David A. Burney, associate professor of biology, is trying the determine why a Malagasy civilization disappeared from the northwestern coast of Madagascar around the year 1400. Archaeological finds show rapid urban growth at the port site of Mahilaka around the year 1200. Two centuries later, the walled town was abandoned, and the region was depopulated. The most plausible explanation, says Burney, is that people overpopulated the area and depleted its resources; another is that a trade network that included the port broke down; a third questions whether the plague that decimated Europe reached Madagascar and wiped out the population. Multidisciplinary efforts have greatly enhanced paleoecologistsÕ work, says Burney. To measure manÕs impact on an area, scientists must learn about the environment before manÕs arrival. Through corings and a new method of radiocarbon dating of objects, BurneyÕs team can trace tiny items - as small as a single seed - back 30,000 years. Burney has also used uranium series dating to date much older cave formations. By removing cores of sediment from the floors of largely untouched Malagasy caves and the bottoms of lakes and bogs, the team can create a stratigraphic Òdiary,Ó with levels of objects Òrepresenting fairly discrete events so that we can increase our precision,Ó said Burney. ÒThe take-home message from this data is that manÕs impact on the environment can be rapid and devastating, even without 20th century technology.Ó Burney cautions that the intrusion of technology Òparallels or exceeds the greatest extinction events the world has ever known.Ó

The John Marion Scholarship, named for the chairman of SothebyÕs North America, a 1956 graduate of The College, and awarded each year to a Fordham College student who is majoring in art history, has been presented to Diana Smiroldo Ô96. . . . Andrew Estocin Ô95 has won a NEH Young Scholar grant to study the interplay of icon-painting and Thomistic thought. . . . Timothy Wood Ô95 has won the Edward Walsh Scholarship awarded annually by The CollegeÕs Communications Department.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant to Margaret M. Carreiro, assistant professor of biological sciences, to conduct a three-year study of the factors that control the process of decomposition which is natureÕs way of recycling nutrients for supporting plant growth. Dr. Carreiro advises that her work, which will be conducted at the UniversityÕs Louis Calder Conservation and Ecology Center, a 114-acre biological field station in Armonk, New York, has implications for determining the effects of urban air pollution on this critical ecological function.

RAMembrances. Jack Clary Ô54 disputes TRADITIONÕs account of the demise of the football program in 1954. Jack writes that Òthe onset of the Lincoln Center project, not any one article in Thought was the catalyst for this move. . . . Fordham ha(d) consistently lost money after reviving the sport in 1946. . . . (and) endured two disastrous years at the tomb known as Randalls Island . . . and . . . , then . . . gave it two final shots back at the Polo Grounds in 1953 and 1954. But crowds that never exceeded . . . 20,000 (and there were just a couple of them) simply didnÕt carry the freight. Red ink had to be minimized . . . , the Jesuit bean-counters decided, and . . . Fordham got out of the football business to save its resources. Consider . . . , that Vince Lombardi (Ô37), then an assistant at Army, was also poised to become head coach at Fordham in 1955 where there already was a motherlode of fine freshman players and another talented class ready for entry. Instead, he signed with the Giants who quickly and successfully filled the void left by the absence of college football in New York City.Ó On the subject of Lombardi, Bernard M. Sheridan Ô54 recalls that, in the early 1950s, the Jesuit administration at Fordham attempted to appoint Lombardi as the head football coach but that the alumni resisted. ÒMaybe if the alumni had stayed out of the way, the football team might have had better success and the sport might not have been dropped.Ó

The Greatest Game. As recounted by George Leonard, one of the greatest college football games of all time was played at St. Stanislaus boysÕ boarding school in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi a few days before the 1942 Sugar Bowl. But, no fans cheered along the sidelines, and no cameras recorded the event, a scrimmage between the East All-Star college squad, which was practicing for the annual East-West game, and Coach ÒSleepy JimÓ CrowleyÕs Fordham squad, which was to play in the Sugar Bowl. Bernie Bierman, whose Minnesota teams won five national championships, and Andy Kerr, the great Colgate coach, coached the extremely strong east squad which included HarvardÕs Endicott ÒChubÓ Peabody, the college lineman of the year, VirginiaÕs Bill Dudley, who had led the nation in scoring, and MinnesotaÕs Bruce Smith, the 1941 Heisman trophy winner. As Peabody passed the Fordham players on his way to the East side of the field, he ignited a war, remarking: ÒWell, well, the tough Fordham Rams. WeÕll make lamb chops out of you guys very shortly.Ó On the first play, the East line sprang Michigan fullback Bob Westfall for a 60-yard touchdown run. Then the Rams got the ball. Lawrence Robinson of the New York World-Telegram, wrote: ÒNo one who was there will ever forget the next series of plays. You could hear the smack of the pads and the muffled grunts of the blockers and defenders all the way to Biloxi. It was one of the greatest football games ever played anywhere, anytime.Ó According to the RamÕs Sam Ososki Ô44, ÒIt was brutal. Everyone was playing for bragging rights at his position.Ó On one play, the RamÕs All-America end Jim Lansing Ô43 crashed into Smith. ÒNeither of us got up,Ó recalls Jim. ÒWe both spent the night in the St. Stanislaus infirmary. As I recall, Smith was unable to play in the East-West game.Ó At the end of the action, Fordham had defeated the East All-Stars two touchdowns to one.

The Sports Page. Bob Atkinson Ô50 advises that, after a recent football weekend, the Patriot League selected one Fordham player as defensive player of the week and another Fordham player as special teams player of the week, but, although no other Patriot League team played that weekend, the League failed to select a Fordham player as offensive player of the week. TRADITION demands an investigation.

Basketball Coach Nick Macarchuk and his staff advise that David Witmer, a 6Õ7Ó power forward and honorable mention high school All-America from Apex High School in Apex, North Carolina, and Billy Lovett, a 5Õ11Ó point guard from St. AnthonyÕs High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, have enrolled at Fordham. In addition, Chris DiMascio, a 6-5, 190-pound small forward from St. JosephÕs University in Philadelphia has transferred to Rose Hill.

The menÕs basketball Rams will play at Rose Hill against USDBL (11/4), the Italian National Junior Team (11/21), Adelphi (11/26), Boston College (12/8), Iona (12/10), Boston University (12/12), Drexel (12/17), Dowling (1/3), Holy Cross (2/15) and Hofstra (2/23). The womenÕs basketball Rams will play at Rose Hill against Maryland-Baltimore County (11/29), Iona (12/1), Manhattan (12/8) and Holy Cross (2/22). The menÕs and womenÕs teams will play at Rose Hill against Bucknell (1/14), Navy (1/25), Colgate (2/1), Lehigh (2/4), Lafayette (2/11) and Army (2/25). The Patriot League tournament will be held at West Point from March 3 to 5, 1995, with final games on the home court of the highest surviving seed.

Athletic Director Frank McLaughlin advises that the University has rededicated the Rose Hill tennis center and named the center in honor of Bob Hawthorn Ô53, the coach of menÕs and womenÕs tennis and squash and John ÒPatÓ Rooney Ô24, the former coach of womenÕs tennis.

Coach Bob Hawthorn advises that the annual Vincent C. Hopkins, S.J. Tennis and Squash Tournament will be held on Saturday, October 1, 1994 on the newly finished courts on Rose Hill. Contact Coach Hawthorn (718-817-4290) for details concerning the tournament.

Coach Dan Gallagher advises that Fordham baseball alumni, their friends and families will gather on Coffey Field at 12:00 noon on Sunday, October 16, 1994 for the annual baseball alumni family day. Contact Coach Gallagher (718-817-4296) for details.

In defense of her classmate Paul Tapogna Ô69, sixties radical Clare Henry Ô69 refutes the contentions of Mark Lawless Ô69 in the September 1994 issue of TRADITION and asserts that the Committee to Restructure the UniversityÕs sit-in and hunger strike in 1969 was extremely effective for the reason that it attracted Òthe right sortÓ of media attention. Henry praises Tapogna for his ability to appear on campus precisely as the CBS camera crews arrived.

The Glee Club will hold a reunion on Saturday, November 5, 1994. Contact Alumni Relations (212-636-6520) for details.

Reader Dr. Maryanne D. Horne Ô71 thanks TRADITION for its Òcreative approachÓ to alumni news. . . . Patricia DiIorio McNulty Ô85 is appreciative of TRADITION but often wonders to whom it is directed. ÒYet, each time, it seems as though there are hardly any contributions by the (alumnae)Ó. . . . Referring the January 1994 issue of TRADITION , Ray McPartland Ô35 believes that it is Òabsolute nonsenseÓ to tamper with the fight song. . . . Duncan W. Clark, M.D. Ô32 suggests that the young woman, who offered the compromise ÒHail, Rams of Fordham, hail,Ó repeat Biology 101. . . . Matthew Smerkanich Ô79 protests that the chorus ÒHail! Men of Fordham, Hail!Ó is insensitive, unfair and non-inclusive of other weather events. . . . Bob Whelan Ô44 writes Òin the generic sense we are all ÔmenÕ of Fordham.Ó . . . Joseph V. Gemski Ô42 suggests that ÒHail! Ewe Rams of Fordham, hail . . .Ó may be more gender appropriate than the current refrain. . . . Ed DeFazio Ô74 has had enough of the debate over the fight song. As an alternative issue, Ed urges alumni to consider whether the media fairly depicts The Bronx and whether we alumni accurately consider the home of our great university. . . . Referring the October 1993 issue of TRADITION, Stuart Morrissey Ô75 advises that the sign at Il Boschetto, which he correctly advises is on Gun Hill Road, should include The Netherlands, The Gambia and El Salvador. . . . Frank J. Haslach Ô50 advises that the Il Boschetto list should include The Dalles. . . . John J. Robb Ô76, who adds The Greater Antilles and, of course, The Hamptons to the list, is interested in organizing a Gulf Coast Chapter of the Alumni Association and urges interested alumni to contact him in care of TRADITION . . . . Linda Cangieter Ô86 invites alumni interested in the Black and Latino Alumni Association to contact her in care of TRADITION . . . . Francis X. OÕBrien Ô43 advises that TRADITION is ÒsplendidÓ. . . . John A. Eriksen Ô39 and Patrick J. Foye Ô78 reveal that their names were misspelled in recent issues of TRADITION and suggest that the offending proofreader be assigned to THE RAM.

Fordham students can help you as business interns during the school year and summer vacation or as they begin their careers upon graduation from Rose Hill. Contact Greg Pappas of the Career Planning and Placement Center (718-817-4360) to learn how you can hire one of FordhamÕs best.

The Admissions Office invites children, grandchildren and friends of alumni to Open Houses on November 13 (Lincoln Center) and 14 (Rose Hill), 1994. Contact Jason Zajac (212-636-6734) of the Admissions Office for details.

Board vice-president Catherine McGuinness Ô83 invites alumni nationwide to share the value of their Fordham experience with talented high school students who have an interest in attending Fordham. To host a meeting in your home or office, contact Jason Zajac (212-636-6710) of the Admissions Office.

Amidst the usual noise outside the gates of Rose Hill on a recent Thursday, came cheers as the UPS Foundation awarded $100,000.00 to POTS (Part of the Solution), a self-described, run down soup kitchen on Webster Avenue. But, despite its outside appearance, help is given whenever it is needed at POTS,which is a very special place on the inside, where food is served family style to 300 people a day, the beds are warm, medical care is free and showers usually hot.. Founded in 1982 by Rev. Ned Murphy, S.J., POTS has served the community around Fordham since and, in Fr. MurphyÕs words, Òhas become much more, much, much moreÓ than he had ever hoped. Because its directors have made it a policy to avoid government funding which places restrictions on who can be served, Òtrying to keep the place open gets harder and harder,Ó says Murphy. Several Fordham students dedicate their time and energies to POTS and, according to Murphy, are a huge reason for its success.

TRADITION: Minister of Propaganda: George P. McKeegan Ô69; Contributing Editors: William J. Healy Ô30, William H. Power, Jr.Õ33, Barrett McGurn Ô35, Francis X. Holbrook, Ph.D. Ô49 and Edward J. Buckley Ô81.