The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
featuring Joel Johnstone, FCLC ’01—and the Rose Hill campus

After five celebrated seasons, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has come to an end. The fan-favorite comedy about a rule-breaking 1950s housewife turned raucous comedian featured Rachel Brosnahan as the title character, Miriam “Midge” Maisel, and Michael Zegen as her soon-to-be-ex-husband Joel, vice president of a plastics company and an aspiring comedian. Fordham’s own Joel Johnstone, FCLC ’01, starred as Archie Cleary, who, along with his wife Imogene, is one of the couple’s best friends. Johnstone aside, the cast and crew were no strangers to Fordham, having filmed at the Rose Hill campus a couple of times. In fact, if you look closely at episode eight of the final season, you’ll notice something familiar in the background: Cunniffe Fountain and Edwards Parade (see above). In this episode, in which Fordham provides the setting for Midge’s college reunion, the characters engage in a lot of self-reflection, illustrated with some throwback clips, and Midge’s dad, Abraham (Tony Shalhoub), finally comes to appreciate the women in his life. Mrs. Maisel is far from the only production to be drawn to Rose Hill’s idyllic beauty. Since the 1940s, dozens of TV shows and films have been shot, in part, at Fordham—including 2015’s True Story, which starred James Franco, Jonah Hill, and Felicity Jones, and featured Fordham Theatre grad Betty Gilpin, FCLC ’08, in a supporting role.
—Sierra McCleary-Harris

Can You Dig It?
co-created and executive produced by Bryan Master, FCRH ’99

This past August marked the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, and media outlets across the world have been looking back at the early days of the culture. In this audio series, though, the focus is on events that led to the birth of hip-hop—ones that took place not far from Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. Co-created by Bryan Master, FCRH ’99, and narrated by legendary Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, Can You Dig It? chronicles the 1971 gang peace treaty in the Bronx that paved the way for hip-hop. Through scripted scenes and unscripted interviews, it tells the story of the murder of Ghetto Brothers member Cornell “Black Benjie” Benjamin, which resulted in an escalation of violence. That moment of chaos was followed by the Hoe Avenue peace meeting, organized by the Ghetto Brothers’ Benjamin “Yellow Benjy” Melendez, which ushered in an era of relative calm among gangs in the South Bronx. Two years later, on August 11, 1973, with young people in the area safer to socialize across neighborhood boundaries, Cindy Campbell threw a “Back to School Jam” in a recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Her brother, Kool Herc, DJ’d the party, which came to be considered the origin of hip-hop music. For Master, the founder and owner of Sound + Fission, a music and audio production company, the series is a tribute to the peacemakers and an open “love letter to the Bronx.”
—Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08

The Color of Family
a novel by Jerry McGill, FCRH ’92

In his latest novel, Jerry McGill, author of Bed Stuy: A Love Story (2021) and the memoir Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me (2012), shares a portrait of the Paynes, an upper-class, African American family that lives in suburban Connecticut. Despite appearances, the Paynes aren’t quite as happy as people assume, especially when twins from France—the result of one of patriarch Harold Payne’s extramarital affairs—arrive on the family’s doorstep. One fateful night, brothers Devon and James are in a car accident that leaves Devon paralyzed. James eventually goes off to college and excels at football, the sport they both loved. When Devon is moved into a rehabilitation center across the country, the distance between the two brothers— wrought by their explosive, sports-fueled rivalry—is no longer just figurative. Years later, as Devon travels around the world over the course of a decade to visit his seven siblings, he sees how the traumatic accident of his youth has affected—and connected—all of them. They each may have moved on in their own way, but it’s only through forgiveness and by coming to terms with the past that they’ll be able to live freely in the present. Though Devon is at the center of the novel, McGill weaves in diary entries and first-person narratives from the other characters, giving readers a chance to examine the relationships, events, and heartbreaks from multiple perspectives. The novel is less than 300 pages, and that, coupled with the shifting points of view, makes it a great, page-turning read.
—Sierra McCleary-Harris

In their first home game of the season, the undefeated Rams did not disappoint, rallying for 21 fourth-quarter points to secure a thrilling 48-45 victory before an enthusiastic crowd on Jack Coffey Field.

“Each and every visit is better than the one before,” said Julie (D’Attilio) Gautam, who has been coming back to campus since she earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from Fordham in 1989. “I think it looks beautiful, and I’m really excited for the next phase—the new president and bringing all of this incredible investment to building together without losing the spirit and history.”

Gautam’s son, Brij, is now a junior in the Gabelli School of Business, and on Saturday, she arrived early with her husband, Manish, and their daughter, Jaya, to take part in a campus tour led by Patricia Peek, Ph.D., FCRH ’90, GSAS ’92, ’07, dean of undergraduate admission.

“I’m a senior in high school right now, but I’ve been coming to Homecoming my whole life, so I feel like I know the school, and I love the school, so I’m very excited to apply,” Jaya said after the tour, which was co-led by Ben Reilly, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior.

Near the residence halls, Peek and Reilly joked that students might be sleeping in a bit after the semiformal President’s Ball, which kicked off at 9 p.m. on Friday and didn’t end until 1 in the morning. About 4,000 undergraduates from the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses—the most to date—enjoyed dancing and refreshments under the tents on Edwards Parade, many getting their first chance to meet Fordham’s new president.

Meanwhile, recent graduates kicked off Homecoming weekend downtown with the Young Alumni Yacht Cruise on Friday night. The annual event, open this year to graduates from the classes of 2012 through 2022, drew about 800 alumni and friends. Together, they cruised around lower Manhattan while enjoying cocktails, dancing, and a buffet dinner.

And They’re Off

By 9 a.m. on Saturday, a few dozen members of the Fordham community had taken their marks near the McShane Campus Center for the 11th annual 5K Ram Run. Runners completed three loops around campus before finishing by the Victory Bell in front of the historic Rose Hill Gymnasium.

Michael Parrinello, a junior studying finance, ran with his sister, Lauren, for the second year in a row, as their parents, Michael and Theresa, cheered them on from sidelines. “It’s a fun time,” Michael Sr. said. “They look forward to the race, and we’re looking forward to the football game.”

Shannon Baurkot, a senior studying applied mathematics, was fired up to join alumni in the race. After her first lap, she leaped into the air to high-five Ramses, the Fordham mascot, before continuing down Constitution Row toward the University Church.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “Honestly, it’s just such a great way to start Homecoming; I couldn’t have asked for a better way.”

Welcoming a New President

After the Ram Run and campus tour, alumni and guests gathered in the Great Hall of the McShane Campus Center, where President Tania Tetlow shared some words of welcome in a fireside-style chat with Sally Benner, FCRH ’84, chair of the Fordham University Alumni Association (FUAA) Advisory Board.

The discussion came a few days after Tetlow’s first State of the University address, where she emphasized the power of the University as a “force multiplier” and an “agent of change.”

“When you look at the trajectory of schools, the ones where alumni really invest—and by that I mean in all of the ways that you do—those are the ones that lean forward,” Tetlow told the Homecoming audience. “So, the fact that Fordham alumni are so engaged, that they want to pay forward the opportunity they received here, that they care so much about this place, that’s a big part of why we are where we are today.”

Field Full of Memories

After the session, Tetlow headed to Edwards Parade to greet alumni, students, families, and friends as they entered the Homecoming tents. More than 2,000 people enjoyed boxed lunches, drinks, games, music, and even some shopping for Fordham-themed jewelry and swag while catching up with each other and learning about upcoming alumni events and one of the University’s newest alumni affinity groups.

As he hung out in the loyal donor tent, Richard Calabrese, FCRH ’72, recalled his days playing quarterback on an intramural football team. “On this very field,” he said, “there are good memories. It was fun. Our fall afternoons were great.”

Homecoming fell on roughly the same date that Calabrese and his wife, Angela, a 1972 College of New Rochelle graduate, met at an on-campus party more than five decades ago. They come to Homecoming every few years from their Florida home. “Today is probably going to be the best experience we’ve ever had here—based on the people we’re with, and the weather,” he said.

He and Angela were visiting with their friends Jacqueline and Fred Schwanwede, both members of the Class of 1972 who were on the sailing team as students.

Asked about his best Fordham memory, Fred pointed to Jacqueline and said just two words: “meeting her.”

Across the grass, in the family tent, Michelle Acosta, FCRH ’98, and her husband, Mark, sat with their 6-year-old daughter, Valentina, who’d availed herself of the face painting station. The couple got married at the University Church in 2010, and Michelle, a philosophy major who has since gone on to practice law on Long Island, had made it a point to come to just about every Homecoming. After a three-year hiatus, she said it was great to be back.

“It truly feels like coming home. There’s the familiar sights, the familiar energy, and there are also new things I haven’t had a chance to check out since the last timeI was here,” she said.

“Valentina has seen all the pictures of our wedding and we like to take her back there, too, to see the church where we got married. I think she definitely can participate more and she’ll have more of a memory. The last time we went to the football game, she was so little, and she was afraid of the Ram. I don’t think that’ll happen this year,” she said laughing.

Harnessing the Spirit of Homecoming to Spread Awareness

Elsewhere, in the main tent, J. Iris Kim, GABELLI ’07, and Mark Son, LAW ’10, helmed a table where they spoke with alumni and students about the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) alumni chapter, established in 2020 by Christopher P. Lee, FCRH ’71, LAW ’79, amid rising incidents of anti-Asian aggression across New York City and the country.

It’s been a little challenging for them to connect with alumni in person during the pandemic, which is why Kim and Son, two of the group’s co-leaders, decided to set up a table at this year’s Homecoming.

“We want to promote AAPI issues and just awareness of our presence on campus,” Kim said. “We’re relatively new, so we’re just really trying to get our name out there. We’re also hoping to connect with some of the student groups on campus, so we can have that connection with the students who will become alums.”

Son said that they’ve been advocating and supporting work taking place at the University toward creating an Asian American studies program. With support from two University grants—an Arts & Sciences Deans’ Challenge Grant and a Teaching Race Across the Curriculum Grant from the chief diversity officer—a group of Fordham professors is currently developing a curriculum for a minor in the subject.

“May is AAPI Heritage Month, so we’ve been celebrating every year,” said Son, who noted that the group is also working to add programming and partnerships, including with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Fordham Law School’s Center on Asian Americans and the Law. The goal of all this work, he said, is to build Fordham pride and “get more people to come out and support these issues.”

Alumni Bookworms Are Back for Round Two

Other attendees stopped by a table piled high with copies of The Complicities, the new novel from Stacey D’Erasmo, associate professor of English at Fordham University. Chosen for the latest Forever Fordham Alumni Book Club, The Complicities tells the story of Suzanne Flaherty, a woman attempting to rebuild her life after her now ex-husband is found guilty of financial crimes and sentenced to prison.

Maureen Corrigan-Connell, GRE ’94, ’95, a Yonkers-based Montessori teacher, said she’s looking forward to reading D’Erasmo’s other books after she finishes The Complicities. She decided to read the novel, and join the alumni book club, in memory of her husband, John, a 1974 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill who was an avid reader.

She’s also enjoying the break from education books.

“When the school year is in, it’s education books and all things Montessori, so I must say that when I do pick up a book I like a certain amount of romance, fiction, and history that dates to a place that I haven’t been.”

Tales from the Tailgate

In the parking lot, Blaine and Missy Lavergne were enjoying their first time tailgating on the Rose Hill campus. The couple, natives of Lafayette, Louisiana, were there to support their daughter Maggie, a first-year Fordham College at Lincoln Center student and a member of the cheerleading squad.

The Lavergnes are big Louisiana State University fans, but for the occasion, they were dressed to the hilt in maroon. Both sported custom-made sneakers with the Fordham logo that one of their other daughters had made for the occasion, and Blaine had fashioned a Fordham flag into a cape. Their spread was merely a test run for Family Weekend on October 1, when they plan to return with the whole family to cheer on Fordham football against Georgetown.

“Maggie interviewed at all of these out-of-state schools, and she just fell in love with Fordham,” Blaine said. “As a Catholic dad, it just fired me up that she would choose a Catholic university. She’s in the best of both worlds: She’s here at a traditional campus, and she gets the beauty of New York and Broadway in Manhattan. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

A few spots away, Lea O’Rourke, a senior at the Gabelli School of Business, was playing cornhole and enjoying coffee and bagels with friends and her parents, Barbara and Kevin. Barbara’s father, Marc Angelillo Jr., FCLC ‘50, played football when he was an undergraduate, and she has fond memories of visiting Rose Hill as a child.

“We grew up coming to the alumni weekends, where he would reconnect with all of his friends,” she said. “My father would drag all six children here and we would enjoy the day.”

For Leah, this year’s Homecoming felt like a long time coming. She attended her first in 2019, but she didn’t know many people at the time, and for the past two years, the pandemic made it challenging to really enjoy the day.

“I am ready for the first of the last tailgates. They are so well put together by my mom, and I’m just so excited. It’s crazy that that was my freshman year,” she said remembering 2019, “and now we’re here.”

Rams Remain Undefeated

At 1 p.m., fans made their way to Jack Coffey Field to watch the then 2-0 Rams take on the University at Albany Great Danes. The Rams jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter, but they soon fell behind in what became a back-and-forth contest.

Staring at an 11-point deficit with 15 minutes to go, senior quarterback Tim DeMorat was unfazed. He led his team to a 21-point fourth quarter and a thrilling 48-45 victory. The win brought the Rams to 3-0 on the season—the team’s best start since 2013, when Fordham advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs and finished the year ranked No. 10 in the country.

John J. Pettenati, FCRH ’81, took in the action on the field from the roof of one of the trailers reserved for members of the Maroon Club. A history major who would go on to work in the banking industry, he’s been a season ticket holder since his days as an undergraduate.

“We are a football school,” he said. “And it’s great, bringing alumni and students together in the fall. To me, this is the easiest thing to do. I mean, it’s not terribly expensive, it’s entertaining, I’m supporting my college, and I’m outside. Those are all wonderful things.”

“If Fordham is alive and flourishing today, it is due to no one more than to Joe.”

That’s what James Finlay, SJ, Fordham’s 30th president, said 40 years ago about Joseph Cammarosano, PhD, the economist, professor, and administrator whose steady hand helped guide the University through the turbulent late 1960s, when student unrest and fiscal troubles threatened to sink colleges across the country.

The 92-year-old Cammarosano—affectionately known as Dr. C—gave up his administrative duties in the late 1980s, but he’s still teaching. And next year, when Fordham begins a yearlong celebration of its 175th anniversary, he’ll be marking his 75th.

“I only missed the first 100 years,” says Cammarosano, who enrolled at Fordham as a freshman in 1941. “In those days, the squirrels outnumbered the students—and they didn’t pay tuition!”

Formed by Family

Cammarosano grew up in Mount Vernon, New York, just across the Bronx’s northern border. “My father was a contractor, and my mother was a very fine seamstress,” he says, recalling how his parents, who emigrated from Sorrento, Italy, worked hard to give him and his brother opportunities they themselves didn’t have. “My mom ultimately did the heavy lifting,” he says, “because my dad, although he was a great role model for me, passed on rather early in my life.”

War interrupted Cammarosano’s studies at Fordham. By 1943, he was a member of the Army Signal Corps, serving mostly in England and Belgium. “The war ended just before I was ready to load up and go to Japan,” he says, so he returned to Fordham instead, enrolling in an accelerated program. “It was hurry up and run. We’d already lost three years in the service.” He graduated magna cum laude in 1947 and went to work as a U.S. customs inspector. After getting a master’s degree at NYU, he returned to Fordham, where he began teaching economics in 1955, earning a doctorate in the subject the following year.

Fiscal Crisis Averted

In 1961, Cammarosano took a consequential sabbatical, joining the Kennedy administration as an economist in the U.S. Bureau of the Budget. A year later, he worked in the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Bolstered by his government service, he was elected president of the Fordham Faculty Senate in 1965, the first to hold that position. And as the University started to encounter serious financial problems in the late 1960s, he was put in a place to help.

By June 1968, Fordham was operating at a $2 million deficit, and Cammarosano, who’d been chair of the faculty budget committee, was named executive vice president. Together with the University’s treasurer, Brother James Kenny, SJ, and the academic president, Paul Reiss, PhD, GSAS ’54, he fought to help Fordham avoid bankruptcy.

“How did I get into this mess?” he asks now. “Out of the Bureau of the Budget. I knew what budgeting was all about, and that’s what I put into practice. I learned something from President Kennedy. He put a strict limit on the budget. Everyone thought he was a spendthrift, and he wanted to prove the contrary.”

During the late ’60s, nobody could have accused Cammarosano of being a spendthrift. Tightfisted was more like it.

“I always wore a black hat, and Father Walsh, to the extent that he could, wore the white hat, although it was probably a gray hat,” he says, referring to Michael Walsh, SJ, president of Fordham from 1969 to 1972.

Cammarosano put a stop to all new construction. Maintenance was deferred. He even posted signs on the Xerox machines: “Why don’t you try carbon?” Like Cammarosano, the suggestion was unfailingly polite. He says it was more psychological ploy than cost-saving measure. “I wanted people to know we were in dire straits, and we had to pull ourselves out of this.”

By 1970, Fordham’s $2 million deficit had been transformed into a $2 million surplus, thanks in part to the advent of Bundy Aid (support for private colleges from New York state), the opening of what became Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and Cammarosano’s fiscal discipline.

“No one lost a single job,” he says. “I felt if we could hold expenses down, do no more than we did last year, and with a very modest tuition increase and the Lincoln Center campus coming on stream, we may make it in very short order. That was the formula.”

A Campus in Turmoil

As the fiscal crisis cooled, student protests intensified on campus. “It pretty much had to do with the Vietnam War and the ROTC’s presence on campus,” Cammarosano says of the wave of demonstrations in 1969 and 1970. “The students took over my office two or three times. I’d come in in the morning, and my windows would be smashed. There was a fire in the McGinley Center. They did a lot of damage.”

Cammarosano was surprised and disappointed by the students’ behavior (“it wasn’t the way they behaved in class”), but he could understand their grievances to a point. “I could relate to them, but don’t take it out on us,” he told them. “I would stop the war, but I had no control.”

Characteristically, he found some humor in the situation. “The students took over the switchboard at one point, and when someone called for me, they said, ‘No, he’s no longer with us, we fired him.’ I almost wished they had fired me!” he says, laughing.

To deal effectively with the unrest, he says, “You had to be reserved, to know when to hold back, when to move forward. We took a lot of hits, but I’m glad we were able to keep our perspective. And we survived.”

Not all of Cammarosano’s “old Fordham war stories,” as he calls them, are as heavy as the financial crisis or student protests. He also fought to transform Edwards Parade, which he says had become “a dog patch.” During the 1970s and ’80s, he initiated periodic “spring offensives for the re-greening of Fordham,” joining facilities workers as they seeded grass, pruned and planted trees, and constructed footpaths.

“I used to say, keeping that grass green means 100 students,” he says, referring to Edwards Parade’s appeal to prospective undergraduates. These days, he’s impressed by the landscaping prowess of the facilities team. “I keep an eye on it, and they’re doing a great job.”

The Dynamo

Some of Cammarosano’s greatest contributions to Fordham, however, have been more personal than institutional. At the Faculty Convocation in fall 1976, the University honored him not only for his administrative skills but also for his work in the classroom, calling him an “exacting taskmaster” who earned his students’ appreciation by preparing “meticulously” and lecturing “dynamically.”

E. Gerald Corrigan, GSAS ’65, ’71, a managing director of Goldman Sachs and a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, studied with Cammarosano during the 1960s, helping him produce economic studies of the Bronx and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“He’s a dynamo,” Corrigan says, recalling how his Fordham mentor would deliver “two-hour lectures nonstop at a fevered pitch.”

Cammarosano is quick to celebrate his many students and colleagues, including all six University presidents since the mid-’60s, each of whom has come to him for counsel. A firstborn son of Italian immigrants, he’s now the head of a three-generation Fordham family.

“All three of my kids are Fordham graduates,” he says. “My daughter’s son graduated from the Law School last May, and now I have a granddaughter in the Gabelli School of Business.”

And he is particularly grateful to the Jesuits with whom he has studied and worked for nearly 75 years.

“They’ve been a great influence on my life,” he says. “The way they deport themselves, you couldn’t help but emulate them.”

Roger Wines, PhD, FCRH ’54, professor emeritus of history at Fordham, served on Cammarosano’s budget committee during the fiscal crisis and worked with him as a member of the Faculty Senate.

“His whole life of service without pretensions is really a tribute not only to Joe but to the old-time Jesuits who were our dedicated teachers at Fordham,” Wines says. “They taught us by example about working selflessly for a good cause. Realistically, but selflessly.”

Last May, at a dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Faculty Senate, Wines delivered a tribute to Cammarosano, keeping it brief, he says, so as not to embarrass his friend, calling him “a mentor, a man of character, a good family man, husband of his late wife Rosalie, father, grandfather, and … a talented scholar and teacher.”

“There are not enough words to express adequately the appreciation owed to him by several generations of Fordham faculty and students,” Wines concluded. “Let us just say two: Thank you.”

Think of live music in New York, and you’re likely to think of Madison Square Garden, concerts in Central Park, or the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn. More intimate, singer-songwriter shows might evoke thoughts of a small club in the Village or a sticky-floored hall on the Lower East Side or in Williamsburg. The leafy Bronx campus of a Jesuit university would probably not come to mind.

But with most performers traveling through its home city, and an award-winning public radio station staffed by prominent New York DJs, Fordham has hosted some of the biggest bands of all time. From the Beach Boys in the gym at the height of their popularity, to Adele at WFUV just after her debut, to U2 broadcasting live from Rose Hill on Good Morning America, the past five decades of popular music have been well represented on University grounds.

“Just the thought that the Beach Boys played at Fordham, that’s really cool,” says Darren DeVivo, FCRH ’87, evening host on WFUV (90.7 FM, wfuv.org), Fordham’s noncommercial public radio station. “And then look what happened with U2. It just shows you that quirky but cool place that Fordham holds within the New York music scene.”

During his 25-plus years at WFUV, DeVivo has welcomed more than a few music icons to the station’s studios in Keating Hall. He even interviewed Beach Boy Brian Wilson in 2008.

But a 1966 Beach Boys concert at Fordham was something else.

University Trustee Dennis Ruppel, FCRH ’68, was sophomore class president, and John Valente, FCRH ’68, was floor chairman of the concert committee that year. They decided to try to bring the surf rockers—one of the most popular acts in the country at the time—to Fordham to play the traditional sophomore concert. Bolstered by the audacity of youth, Ruppel called the band’s management, and the committee signed the Beach Boys to play at Rose Hill on March 18, 1966, along with the Lovin’ Spoonful.

“This is what was so great about the pre- Woodstock era,” says Valente, a former executive producer of network soap operas who runs two independent movie theaters in the Berkshires. “You’d look at the back of the LP, find the management company, and make a couple of phone calls.”

“It was very easy,” adds Ruppel, who brokered the deal with the William Morris agency. Still, signing the contract was nerve-racking. “When you have to come up with $7,500 you don’t take it lightly! It was a lesson in risk management—and I live today as the CEO of an insurance company,” says Ruppel, who heads Ark Royal homeowners insurance company and is a partner in the Florida-based law firm Johnson, Pope, Bokor, Ruppel & Burns, LLP.

Ruppel needn’t have worried; the committee sold so many tickets that it exercised its contract option to add another show on the same night.

The late New York DJ Pete Fornatale, FCRH ’67, who began his career as a student at WFUV and came back to the station in 2001, recalled the Beach Boys concert in an interview for this magazine shortly before he died in April 2012.

“Fordham was the place to be that night,” he said, “and fortunately for me I knew the concert committee and they knew FUV, and they set us up in the dressing room to do recordings.”

That meeting sparked a decades-long relationship between Fornatale and the Beach Boys. He emceed their 1971 comeback concert at Carnegie Hall, and the surviving members of the band recorded a video tribute that was played at his June 2012 memorial at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York.

Soon after that 1966 Beach Boys concert, Fordham students and other New Yorkers began flocking to Rose Hill to see bands that would later become legends: Simon and Garfunkel, the Four Tops, Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, and many more in the ’60s and ’70s. Joan Jett, Squeeze, and 10,000 Maniacs, among others in the ’80s and ’90s. And no one will ever forget that chilly morning in 2009 when U2 played an electrifying set on Edwards Parade.

What follows is a collection of vignettes highlighting Fordham’s rock-and-roll reputation.

The Beach Boys with the Lovin’ Spoonful
March 18, 1966
Rose Hill Gymnasium

Led by native New Yorker John Sebastian, the Lovin’ Spoonful had a hit in 1965 with “Do You Believe in Magic?” but they were still relative newcomers when they signed on to open up for the Beach Boys. By March ’66 the band had a few more hits, including “Daydream,” and they were just a few months away from releasing one of their most enduring singles—“Summer in the City.” Yet they’d never played a gig as big as this one.

“To the Spoonful, it was a step up,” says Sebastian. “We had been playing high schools the year before, so to get a job at Fordham meant a tremendous amount to us.” The band was also excited to perform on a bill with the Beach Boys.

When the Lovin’ Spoonful showed up at the McGinley Center that night—in taxi cabs from the Village—someone mistakenly placed them in the faculty lounge reserved as the Beach Boys’ dressing room. When the Beach Boys pulled up in their limos and found another band in their room, “You could cut the tension with a knife,” says Dennis Ruppel.

“I talked to John Sebastian and very kindly asked him to leave. He was very cool about it; he got it instantly.” But he left his autoharp behind. “One of the Beach Boys picked up the harp and was sitting on the couch playing it. [Sebastian] came back and there was again this high tension level,” Ruppel remembers, especially because the Beach Boy insisted on finishing his song.

As for the show? “It was great,” says Ruppel. “People were yelling and screaming. They played everything. ‘California Girls,’ ‘Little Deuce Coup,’ ‘Surfin’ Safari.’ It was one hit after another.”

The Supremes with Gladys Knight and the Pips
March 11, 1967
Rose Hill Gymnasium

By 1966, the Supremes were international stars and Motown’s biggest act. Their catchy singles “Stop in the Name of Love,” “Back in My Arms Again,” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” along with the easy tone of Diana Ross’ voice, allowed the trio to cross over from R&B to pop, and made them one of the most successful groups of the decade. Gladys Knight and the Pips opened the show. “We caught them on the rise, just before they became headliners themselves,” recalls John Valente, FCRH ’68.

Mary Bruton Reid, TMC ’69, waitressed in the McGinley Center’s Ramskeller that evening and brought a tray of beers to the Supremes.

“They were just beautiful, in shimmering, glittery gowns,” says Reid. “They took complete control of the stage. Diana Ross had huge charisma.” When they introduced themselves during the show, Reid recalls, Ross said, “‘And me, I’m the skinny one,’ and did a sort of wiggle, and then they went into all their songs.’”

Kate Schumann, GABELLI ’83,’96, posted a memory of the show on the Fordham alumni Facebook page: “They let the neighborhood kids in for free. I was so small that I sat just below the stage. Afterwards, I was caught trying to sneak [into]the reception being held at the McGinley Center. A very fond memory!”

The Kinks with Aerosmith
March 30, 1973
Rose Hill Gymnasium

Nearly 10 years after “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” paved the way for the hard rock of future decades, the Kinks played at Rose Hill with Boston rockers Aerosmith. According to New York Times critic John Rockwell, the Kinks made it clear that night in the gym that “they are still one of the finest groups around.”

Rockwell gave most of the credit to front man Ray Davies, but also praised “the simple invention of their material and arrangements (a three-piece mini-Dixieland band was on hand) and the skill of their execution.” The writer had less-than-kind words for Aerosmith, who would release their debut album, including the now-classic “Dream

On,” two months later. The band “played loud, derivative rock, distinguished only by Steven Tyler’s fawning imitation of Mick Jagger.”

Kurtis Blow
February 26, 1983
McGinley Center Cafeteria

Three years after releasing “The Breaks”—the first-ever rap hit on a major label—Harlem-born Kurtis Blow played a sold-out show in the McGinley Center. Blow’s influence was so significant that rapper Run (aka Joseph Simmons) of the seminal hip-hop trio Run DMC, called himself “The Son of Kurtis Blow” when he was first starting out.

“It was a great performance. He was really, really entertaining,” says Joe Cerra, FCRH ’84, chairman of the concert committee at the time. “We had booked it as sort of a New York City nightclub. We opened the doors early and had a mixer with a DJ.”

Mimes and Mummers, the theater company at Rose Hill, had an earlier performance, Cerra recalls, and people were able to go to both shows for a full night out. “It was a really great night on campus.”

Billy Idol
December 2, 1983
Rose Hill Gymnasium

“The Billy Idol show got out of hand,” Cerra says of the winter concert by the English rocker. The concert committee booked the show before the 1983 summer break, when Idol’s single “White Wedding” was popular. They’d planned to sell 3,000 tickets at $5 each—the same price as the Beach Boys show nearly 20 years earlier. “We were never trying to make money,” says Cerra, now an attorney living in Suffern, N.Y.

But before the fall rolled around, the new music-video craze had made Idol famous. “He got a lot of play on MTV that summer and was very, very hot,” Cerra says. “There’s no question there were more than 3,000 people in that gym.” Idol played all his big hits: “Rebel Yell,” “Mony Mony,” and “Dancin’ with Myself.” Teen idol Matt Dillon even showed up with Idol’s entourage. “The place was really rockin’,” says Cerra.

The Ramones
April 27, 1984
Rose Hill Gymnasium

“We originally wanted the Go-Go’s. They were red hot at the time,” says Cerra. But the all-female group’s drummer needed open-heart surgery, and they canceled one month before the show.

“The Ramones were available for that day, and we scooped them up,” says Cerra.

The iconic punk rock pioneers from Forest Hills, Queens, released their debut album in 1976 and toured relentlessly, playing often at the nowshuttered East Village venue CBGB. Even though the band’s popularity was waning by 1984, their hits had staying power. “At every college party you went to, ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ was playing,” Cerra says. The show nearly sold out.

Backstage, the Ramones’ demands were few. “They were pretty straightforward and pretty down-to-earth guys,” says Cerra, although they did have one special request. Concert committee member Rich Srsich, GABELLI ’85, “had to keep giving Joey Ramone updates on the Knicks game.”

The Violent Femmes with The Roots
March 28, 1998
Rose Hill Gymnasium

American alternative rockers the Violent Femmes played at Rose Hill 15 years after the release of their popular self-titled debut album. Known for their jittery yet melodic sound and eternally appealing odes to teenage angst (burger chain Wendy’s used “Blister in the Sun” in their 2007 TV ads), the Milwaukee band was still releasing albums and touring in the ’90s. They reunited in 2013, playing at the Coachella festival.

The Roots, considered by many to be the best live hip-hop band, released their breakthrough album Things Fall Apart the year after playing at Fordham. But by 1998, critics had already lauded the future Grammy Award winners for their jazzy, funky approach to the genre. Today the Roots serve as the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Adele
June 9, 2008
Studio A at WFUV

Pop sensation Adele did one of her first U.S. radio interviews at WFUV in 2008, just after the American release of her debut album, 19.

When Rita Houston, WFUV’s music director, heard the young singer perform that day, she had a sense that she’d make it big. “There was something that was so honest about what she was doing,” Houston says. Adele returned to FUV after releasing 21, which won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Album of the Year.

U2
March 6, 2009
Edwards Parade

“It was just a rumor for the longest time, but we were very excited. We all knew something was coming,” says Dennis Elsas, WFUV’s afternoon host. “There was great anticipation at the thought that one of the biggest bands in the world was going to be coming here, literally on the steps of Keating Hall.”

Elsas, a recognized rock authority who spent 25 years at New York’s WNEW as a DJ and music director, has interviewed rock’s greatest legends, including John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and Pete Townsend. “I’ve been involved with many shows,” he says, “but they were a hundred yards from our studio—less—it was our backyard!” Between the staff from Good Morning America, which was broadcasting the show live, U2’s security, and University security, it was tough even for Elsas to get near the Irish rockers. But he made his way to the stage, where he filed reports for WFUV.

The group played beautifully to the Fordham crowd, Elsas says. Front man Bono reminisced about how he and his bandmates got together when they were in their teens. “We joined a band to get out of going to college,” he said, “but maybe if it looked like this and felt like this, things could have been different.”

“There was a tremendous sense of pride [that day],” Elsas says. “It was both rock and roll and Fordham history.”

MGMT
May 1, 2010
Martyrs’ Court Lawn

At Spring Weekend 2010, student bands Average Girl and Penrose opened for the Brooklyn-based synthpop sensation MGMT, which had just released its second album, Congratulations. The band, hot off an April 24 performance on Saturday Night Live, played all of its hits, including the electrodisco anthems “Kids” and “Time to Pretend.”

Emeli Sandé
February 27, 2012
Studio A at WFUV

Emeli Sandé chose FUV for her first American radio interview after the release of her debut album, Our Version of Events, which later reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom. “She was just lovely and so self-possessed,” Houston says of the singer, who grew up in Scotland. “Her songs knocked me out.”

The 26-year-old songwriter has penned tunes for Alicia Keys, Rihanna, and many others. At Fordham, she performed stripped-down versions of her own soulful hits, including “My Kind of Love.” The YouTube videos of her FUV Studio A session have received more than 1 million hits combined, possibly due to her growing popularity after performances at the London Olympics in summer 2012 and at the White House in May.

The footage may be used in University promotional and fundraising material. Please note, this request is only to members of the University community at the March 6 event.