Rainout, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Doesn't look good...gametime in 20 minutes.

A couple of months ago, my mom told me of a student asking for my help.  She had made Fordham, but her boyfriend, who she said was a very good student, was waitlisted.  Knowing that I, if nothing else, knew a lot of people to talk to at Fordham, mom passed this girl on to me. I know that this years admissions numbers were through the roof in both quantity and quality, so it had to be tough to get off that list.  It didn't seem like the numbers would be in this student's favor, which is a shame, because its just a very difficult process altogether.  The admissions group does a great job with selection, but its also a tough job, because you're dealing with the emotions and expectations of literally thousands of candidates.  Its so hard to select one versus another and its, of course, not a perfect process.

The one thing that I told him was that, like in any other situation, like hiring, for example, its probably better when someone has a personal experience with you, and that he should make himself known to the right person.  The Admissions Office can't possibily interview 15,000 people, but it would be great if someone at the University was able to talk to him.  Showing up at Admissions and begging isn't quite what I had in mind, but I'm sure that's probably what a lot of people do.  I don't envy the people that have to answer all of these really sincere and heartwrenching phonecalls from students and parents alike.

I asked what this student's major was and it turns out that he wanted to do journalism.  Fordham has a great communications program and so I went straight to the top.  I contacted Dr. Paul Levinson, the Chair of the department, and basically asked if he would be willing to take a meeting with the student.  I said that if it turns out this student is really good, he could pass on a positive message to Admissions if he sees fit, and if not, no harm done and perhaps if nothing else this student would get some words of wisdom from an experienced professor. 

Well, not only did Dr. Levinson meet with this student, but he asked the student for writing samples.   I still didn't think there was much of a shot for this kid, though, just because of the numbers,  until I got this e-mail today.  It was actually the first time I had direct contact with the student...

Dear Mr. O'Donnell,

Although we have been in correspondance for quite some time now in one form or another we have never actually directly spoken. As I'm sure you know by now, my name is ..., and I'm writing to tell you how sincerely grateful I am for everything you did for me during the college acceptance process. Please don't think me rude for taking so long to respond, but I've been very overwhelmed as of late. One of the positive things that I got out of this whole application experience, is a genuine sense of gratefulness for my acceptance to Fordham. Unlike some others to whom admission came easy, I will not take one day of my career at Fordham for granted. I am thoroughly looking forward to the fall, and beam with pride whenever I get to tell someone about my college plans. Once again thank you so much for arranging my meeting with Dr. Levinson, who was invaluable to my quest for Fordham admission. At some point I hope I am able to thank you in person, but until that day you have my deepest gratitude.

Sincerely,

...

Fordham University Class of 2009

I forwarded this to Dr. Levinson, who responded:

Truly my pleasure.  Fordham is a winner in the humanity it allows
into such tough processes like college acceptances.

All best wishes,
Paul

Link: WFUV: Let’s Get Digital Panel - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com _.

This should be really interesting.... and I'm not just promoting it because its a Fordham related event:

"If the new world of mp3 blogs, mash-ups, downloads and ringtones boggles your mind, tune in to Let’s Get Digital on Thursday, May 19 at 9:00 PM, as host Jen Guerra takes a musical look at all things online. The New Yorker Pop Music Critic Sasha Frere-Jones, CDBaby.com Founder Derek Sivers, Berklee School of Music Vice President David Kusek, Creative Commons Executive Director Glenn Otis Brown and others join Guerra for an hour-long program examining how the race to get online affects not only musicians, but music fans and the music business in general.”

Go to WFUV's website for more info and the webcast.

After three games, Fordham Young Alumni Softball is still looking for its first win. While the team has looked solid, the guys and gals in maroon always seem to be inches away from a clutch hit or a run saving catch.  Call to the stand yesterday's 8-4 loss to Partsearch...

Just a few plays would have made the difference, but none of them went Fordham's way.  Fordham loaded the bases with two outs in the third, only to have the pitcher just barely get a glove on Christine Schildknecht's smash up the middle.  In the field, Larry Porco came within a step of a terrific Web Gem in the field, getting on his horse from center over to right and diving for a fly ball.  He tumbled on the catch and just barely lost his hold on it, which would have ended the inning, but was a great effort nonetheless. 

Christine also made a few nice grabs in the field, gloving two hot shots to second in the fifth.  In fact, the game featured several new faces at new positions.  Dave Murphy started at third, and manager Charlie O'Donnell subbed in for the under-the-weather Alexis Kramer.  O'Donnell's shortstop debut turned out to be a mixed bag--solid at first, but two misqueues late in the came cost Fordham two runs.  "I'm looking forward to getting back to the outfield where I can roam free like an antelope," he commented after the game. 

Patti Dickerson played her second game at firstbase, turning in another game of solid play.  Other highlights included Antoinette Mirsberger's first hit of the season, a seeing eye infield single.  Her personal hitting coach, Trevor Freeman, is proud of the great strides she's making.  "She told me before the season that if she didn't learn to hit, she'd dump me, so I've been working extra hard to make sure she learns the ropes," Freeman told the press in an interview. 

Brian Cuthbert went the distance on the mound in the loss for Fordham.  He'll return to the mound for Fordham's next game, on May 19th.... same time (6:30) same field (Heckscher #1).  More pictures from the game can be found here.

Wooooooooo!    Congrats to Harsh Acharya, John Bitzer, Anita Erzetic, Michael Odell!

Link: New York Society of Security Analysts | NYSSA Announces Challenge Winners.

New York (April 27, 2005) – With a ‘buy’ recommendation, the team from Fordham Business School won the Third Annual NYSSA Investment Research Challenge, held on April 21st at Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Randy Johnson and the exploding bird.

The pine tar incident.

The All Star Game tie.

Add Fordham's Friday night game against The Deal to your list of wacky incidents.  A scheduling error by the league left Fordham opponentless for 45 minutes until The Deal finally started showing up around 6:15--early as far as they knew.  Both teams scurried to start as time on the field permit ticked away, but in the end, since the game didn't go the full time, the league decided to suspend the game with Fordham up 7-5 after five, to be continued later in the season.

Fordham bats were quiet but effective during the game, with several "seeing eye" hits doing some major damage against The Deal.  Patti "Hit it where they ain't" Dickerson drove in four runs on two clutch floaters  just over the infield.  The game of inches also came back to hurt Fordham as well.  Pat "The Mighty" Quinn just missed a great stab at a liner over third and Larry Porco attempted a diving stop of a smash to first.  Both plays would have shut the door before The Deal put three on the board in the third, but as it was, luck wasn't much of a lady to either team on Central Park's Great Lawn that night.

Fordham sent Charlie O'Donnell to the mound in place of their absent ace Brian Cuthbert.  O'Donnell frustrated The Deal with his unwillingness/inability to keep the ball around the plate, causing some ugly and desperate swings.  He also walked three, but never game The Deal much of anything to hit.  He slipped several called strikes past the surprised Deal hitters, and while it might of been ugly, it kept Fordham in the game.

No word yet on when the remaining two innings will be played, but Fordham will look for their first win this week at Heckscher #1 this Thursday night at 6:45 in Central Park.

Tomorrow, at 6:15PM, the Fordham Young Alumni softball team plays its inaugural game at City College.  Spectators are encouraged!! 

Here's how to get to the field...

_________________________________________________________________

This post is an experiment of sorts--to see the network effect of the blogosphere in action to help get my mentee an internship.

I have been mentoring a bright young Fordham freshman for a few months now and she's trying to get an internship over the summer.  I have posted her resume below, and would like to say a few words about her.  Hopefully, someone who reads this blog will be interested in hiring a highly motivated young woman for a summer position where she can learn a lot and also contribute to real projects in a meaningful way.

I was impressed with Christina Maresca's enthusiasm right away.  She has been very engaged in our mentoring relationship and works very hard at school.  She is currently attending Fordham at the Marymount campus in Tarrytown, but will be transferring to the College of Business Administration at Rose Hill at the end of the semester.  She is a scholarship student and she is already involving herself on campus in leadership roles--becoming the Treasurer of the Italian club immediately after starting school.  She works two jobs while attending school--at the Gap and at the school's health center.

She has an interest in business, but one of the things we've discussed is that she needs some experience to help her explore her options.  I believe that she could make a great contribution to any firm she joins this summer and hopefully someone will take the same chance on her that GM took on me when I first started interning around the same age. 

If you contact Christina, please also leave a comment on this post.  It will be interesting to see how much interest this blog is able to generate and whether or not this new medium can help her out. 

And no, she does not have a blog of her own... yet.  However, I think if she gets something over the summer from this blog, it will go a long way to convincing her how blogging can help even a student's career and perhaps that will motivate her to blog her summer internship.  Keep that in mind.  If she gets her internship from a blog, and blogs her experience, it might make for an interesting story and good publicity for your company.

Fordham wins!  Fordham wins!  Stout hits a three to win it 56-54!

Down to the wire...

Tipoff!!

I went to the first meeting of the Fordham Young Alumni Executive Leadership series tonight.  Father McShane talked a lot about responsibility--that it was Fordham's responsibility to become the preeminent Catholic University in the country.  Along those lines I told Samara that it was our responsibility as Fordham bloggers to blog about what happened tonight and about all the enthusiasm and potential surrounding it. 

Rick Mina, the CEO of Foot Locker, was the keynote speaker.  He spoke about loving what you do and working your way to success "inch by inch."  Rick, to me, characterized the Fordham success story.  This was not necessarily a charismatic man of "vision."  He was a determined man of hard work.  He worked his way in from the ground floor.  His greatness seemed to be a result rather than a desire, as opposed to someone like a Steve Case who clearly wanted to do something great from the beginning and was less than focused on the actual work that went in to getting the result.  One of the alumni in our little business/finance breakout group brought up an issue about how many people coming out of Fordham achieve the level of success that Rick has.  So many people from Fordham seem to end up in solid, but not spectacular... good, but not great careers.  Of course, this is anecdotal, but the issue, by the admittance of the alumni mentors, seemed to have come up before.  Why is this?  What is it about the education at Fordham that seems to give people enough fuel for getting high up the ladder, but rarely to the top?

I think, to some extent, its confidence, which is just simply a perception of what you can handle.  One of the alumni said, "Maybe we're just not telling the students, 'Hey, get out there and knock 'em dead.'"  I actually think that, to a large extent, that's true.  I don't think there is any difference in the willingness to work hard of Fordham students.  In fact, I think they're willing to work harder than most, because they don't have the expectation of being handed anything for free, as opposed to an Ivy grad, perhaps.  Certainly the quality of the education is there...  I'd put a Jesuit education up against any other learning philosophy out there. 

No, to some extent, its a matter of believing in yourself enough to take hold of one of those "dare to be great" situations.  Its not about thinking that you yourself are great, but its holding out for a great opportunity or taking a risk on something with great potential.  When Father McShane talks openly about Fordham becoming the preeminent Catholic university in the country, he is trying to get people to recognize that Fordham itself is a "dare to be great" situation.  Unless you get people thinking like that you're never going to get there.  We should think and act like a great school because there's no reason why we can't be. 

Our basketball team should be going to the NCAA like St. John's has in recent memory.  Our website should be cutting edge, not in its look, but in its functionality, truly connecting the university community in new and exciting ways.  Little things, like our alumni softball team should have cool jerseys, not just t-shirts, because we're proud to be at Fordham and we're willing to invest in the brand.  Oh, and we need a blog, too.  I'd like to get the accumulated wisdom of every last one of the 100 President's Council members, the eager young alumni, and the excited students up on the web to get distributed in a stream to the world via RSS.  We need to shout to the world on every medium possible how great we are.

I saw tonight a contagious enthusiasm for Fordham's potential and I think it needs to be harnessed and brought back to the student body in a more deliberate manner.  I told Charles Spinelli, a Fordham alum in my breakout group, that he needed to go back to campus to pass on the same inspiring words he shared in our group with the students.  I misspoke.  Fordham needs him to go back and share those words with the students.  Fordham students need to burst out of this school like gangbusters ready to affect the world around them in a deeply profound way.  That doesn't necessarily mean trampling the guy next to you, but it does mean finding a situation that positions you to lead by example, to reach the top in a positive and productive way.  Ask not how you can be great, Fordham students, alumni, faculty, and administrators, but ask what is the great situation with the great potential that you are going to throw yourselves into without fear of failure, or even worse, fear of success.

Nice article in the Daily News about Fordham basketball.

The Rams scored a big win on the final play of the game yesterday up at Rose Hill, beating Xavier 76-74.  Yours truly was lucky enough to be up at the game, which Fordham nearly gave away in the last few minutes.  The win makes them 6-9 and 1-1 in the conference.   Not too shabby...  certainly a lot more than Bob Hill did with the team.  Where is old Bobby boy anyway?  I hope he's coaching an 11 year-old CYO team somewhere.

Ok, so here are some pictures I took from Homecoming... I know it was like over a month ago, but now that I've switched my blog to Typepad, its a lot easier for me to post photos. I'll be more diligent about posting them in real time as soon as I catch up. In addition to hanging out in the parking lot, me, McBride and Liz Werner visited Queens Court, our dorm in freshmen year, to dig up the past. That night, I hung out with Deirg & Co. at the Beer Garden.

So my career nearly took a wild turn this week... I got a call from Liz in Fordham's Career Planning office. We worked together on the mentoring program and she was calling to tell me that she was leaving to go work for Seton Hall.

Now I had said before that I would love to do Liz's job... she's the Assistant Director of Special Programs or something like that, she she has a lot of relative flexibility in terms of new things she can come up with and run. Admittedly, what I'd really love to do is to run a career group, but if I were to jump early and make a switch, hers is the kind of job I would switch into, rather than to an employer relations position or something where I don't get as much student interaction.

When she called, I got very anxious. I wasn't really prepared for such an opportunity to arrive this early--although I knew she would probably leave Fordham within a short period of time. I just didn't expect it to be a year after she started. Without hesitation, though, I asked her to transfer me to Angela, who runs the office. I made up some excuse like I need to get back to her about something. I didn't know whether or not it would be rude to get right up in there and start circling around her job like a vulture, and when Liz is concerned, I can never figure out when I'm being obnoxious or not, so I figured I'd play it safe. As soon as Angela got on the phone, it just poured out of me:

"I just spoke to Liz. She told me she was leaving. I'd like to be considered for that position."Angela seemed pretty surprised, and her first response was, "Do you know how much it pays?" Now, I'm well aware that I'm not going to make private equity money working for a university. I've already mentally waged that battle and talked myself down to a certain level. Pace had a similar position open earlier in the summer, and their guidence on the website was 44-56k. That's a big stepdown, but its doable. Having no reason to believe that schools would be different on their payscale, I said that I had some idea of where it was. Well, turns out there is a difference--a pretty significant one. This job was going to pay 32k.

"Hmm... wow... 32. Jeez.. I wasn't really expecting that."

So 32k pretty much takes the job off the radar screen. I would have taken in the low 40's, but for someone with three years experience in finance and a whole bunch of student experience, that's just not a reasonable salary. Now, Deirg, who will probably wind up applying for this job, would argue its reasonabilty compared to the scale that she gets paid now, but her salary's not reasonable either. Just because that's what people are getting paid doesn't make their salaries reasonable. No one with a college degree two years out of college in NYC should be making less than 40... ideal maybe, but that just seems fair.

Anyway, this leads into my longer discussion of the day--the fact that Fordham shortchanges for the same position relative to Pace. This has been one of my biggest pet peeves with this school as an alumni for years. Like the Mets, Fordham is willing, time after time, to shortchange themselves to satisfy the short term, without thinking about the long term. Take the Yankees, for example, who went out and got Jon Lieber, even though he was going to be on the shelf for year, so they could have him for the year after. Geniuses.

Fordham, on the other hand, constantly shoots itself in the foot worrying about the short term. Take this job, for example. Career planning, whether a liberal arts school likes it or not, is probably the most important department within the university. No matter what kind of education you are given, moral values you are endoctrinated with, social lessons you are taught, if you can't develop a platform on which you can take those lesses to the outside world--be it with via a career, a calling, graduate studies, etc.--that's all going to go to waste. What someone is able to turn their education into more directly impacts a student's impression of what they got from school more than anything else. Show me a student in a really crappy job that they hate who really feels like their school really prepared them well for life.

Not only that, someone's career success, especially in the near term, strongly dictates whether or not they are going to give back to their school. If you are living paycheck to paycheck and just scraping by, or you don't really like where you've wound up, how likely are you going to want to contribute back to the unviversity, versus someone who feels like they hit the ground running in an area that they like.

That being said, that fifteen grand a year that Fordham will save each year definately doesn't help them in the long term. They couldn't afford to keep Liz on, and that's just going to happen again and again. Regardless of whether you can get someone quality in that role for that pay, you have to admit that the turnover it creates is disruptive to the group. I mean, GM went through this thought process with the private equity group. We're not being spun off just so we can make more money--its about retaining the best people and a group that works well together. In the end, being cheap on salary hear affects student impressions of the group as a whole. Since no one ever polls the alumni base, they don't realize it, but I would love to see what the numbers look like on the Career Planning group... and its not just Fordham. University's on the whole are much more apt to put money into their basketball coach than they are into the departments that touch the everyday lives of students.

This happens in other departments in universities around the country, as well at Fordham... with the financial folks that students seem to have issues with every year regarding their financial aid, bills, etc. to the residential life group--whose farewell to the students comes in a room damage bill. Think about it. When you leave the school, the last thing you get from them, after four years of paying 35k a year, is a bill for 50 bucks for some piece of damage you have no way to defend yourself against, and no way to see if it ever got fixed. You just feel taken by it... in a way that definately irks you enough not to make you want to give back to the school. If I were in charge of a school, for any damage bill $50 or less for seniors, I would send a note to the student saying, "There was a small amount of damage repaired in your room (note here that we should only be billing students for repaired damage not assessed damage). It has been our privilage to be a part of your education, and so we are waving this charge so that we can maintain a positive connection to you going forward as a member of the alumni community. However, we are still incurring this cost to do repairs and, would instead, appreciate your continued support of the University by means of a donation as an alumni for this amount."

First off, I think people would be blown away by that move... in a positive way and I think a lot of people would respond with a donation. Secondly, what you lose in fines, you gain by not losing future donations because people are pissed off about small amounts of room damage that just never get fixed. In addition, in the case of someone who does donate, wouldn't you rather have that money coming into the University as an alumni donation than a room fine? Room fines dont' count for anything, whereas getting that number up of how many alumni give back is critical to the ratings of the university.

One move Fordham has made along these lines is not charging for transcripts anymore, which follows the same logic. There's no need to keep nickel and diming people over their lifetime, which only goes to hurting the steam of potential donations.

Finally, and I've been harping about this for years... the biggest misstep I can see currently is the alumni directory. A few weeks ago, I got an online notice saying that they are publishing a physical directory and they wanted me to update my contact information. ???? What year is this??? An actual book. Who the hell is going to use this? Oh, it comes in a CD, too? This is utterly ridiculous. My HIGH SCHOOL has a searchable online directory that allows me to find people in my industry, people that went to the same college as me, etc. Its such an incredibly useful tool to stay connected to the university and for career connections. So many schools are moving in this direction and it blows my mind that we're still printing out a book that will be obsolete fast. They can say its a cost factor, but if you just made an online directory where you can look up all the same information, and only gave those Fordham alumni that financially support the school access to it, I think a lot more people would give back.

But you know what...  I still love Fordham, and that's why I complain.  You don't complain about things unless you have high expectations.  I still got a wonderful education, met great people there, and had access to lots of fantastic resources.  If I didn't love the school and think it was a great place to go, I wouldn't be complaining about it.  I mean, where else can you get a real campus in New York City?  Perhaps Columbia...  but I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to throw baseballs around their stuffy greenery.

Alright. That's all I have for now. I think they should do an alumni forum--the same way they have a student speakout, or at least, had one. People could come and ask questions about the direction of the school, give feedback, etc. I think a lot of people whould show, and if nothing else, it makes people feel like they care about the direction of the university.

Oh, and by the way.. its starting to get kinda cold out. I've been waking up to like 60 degree temps... and my apartment keeps pretty cool, so I think its even less than that. We're starting to talk about when the last day at the boathouse is... 10/15. brr.... That's got to be cold when you get out of the water.

I had the most fantastic weekend... Friday night was the Fordham alumni boat cruise. Its funny, because everyone always asks whether or its fun or not. I never thought of anything as being fun on its own... unless its like a show or performance--something we're I'm not interacting. For an event, I really think the fun is what you make of it, and I definately made this fun. I had a great conversation with someone the entire cruise about family, careers, values, etc... it was just a very real talk, something I haven't had with someone for that long in a while. Very cool stuff. Brown and Matt came, too, which was bizzare, because they never come to anything. Anyway... the views were fantastic and so was the company. We went past the Boathouse, too, which was cool.
Speaking of the Boathouse, this kayaking thing has seriously been like the best thing to ever happen to me. I absolutely love it... I spend as much time as I can there, and look forward to it the whole week. The people who volunteer are just a great bunch of people. Its a really diverse group... and its weird. Very few people talk about what they do or where they come from, but it doesn't seem to matter. Its just this place where people have come together to have fun and facilitate other people's fun. Jeff Reals keeps saying its a cult... and it kind of is.. but its a happy cult that kayaks. If I had to choose a cult, that's the kind of cult I want to be in.
Anyway... Saturday, I was out from 8AM to 2AM... I started by going down to the boathouse to try and get on the morning trip, which I did. We went up a little past Chelsea piers with Mike and Janice and came back... neat little trip. When I got back, Andie was there. We hung out the whole day, and then added Amar and Jay to our posse and headed out after kayaking. The four of us went down to this outside bar/resteraunt down by Battery Park where they park yachts... right by the Winter Garden. We must have been there for like five hours... totally laughing our asses off the whole time. Amar is a total nutcase, and he and Andy were pretty drunk. We were inviting everyone to come down to Kayak. It was a riot. Then, we took the SI ferry at 11:30 just to see the downtown skyline... and to satisfy Andie's touresty curiousity. It turned out to be a great trip...

Sunday was fun, too, except for the part where this guy took a seizure on one of the kayaks and nearly drowned. It was totally bizzare, and scary to watch. This guy in his 40's and 50's was paddling back to the dock, when he suddenly started convulsing and bounced himself right out of the kayak and into the water face down. I screamed, "That guy is having a seizure!" Everyone had seen it... I was up at the pier eating my lunch. His friends in a double hopped off and pulled his head up, and one of the other volunteers paddled out to get him. They pulled himm out pretty quickly, and eventually he came to. I had called 911 and ran to get the ambulance, which had stopped in the wrong place a few blocks up. Scary stuff... he turned out to be ok, but I don't think I'll ever forget that image and sound of him shaking and falling in the water.

Sunday night, I had dinner with Liz, which was great. Its really nice that we're friends again, almost as if our debacle of a relationship never happened... Anyway.. this is the abridged version. The face to face story is longer, but I'm sleepy and this is long overdue as it is.