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Fordham University history
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The seminary was paired with St John's College, which opened at Rose Hill with a student body of six on June 24, 1841, the feast day of Saint John the Baptist.
Fordham University was established in 1841 as St John's College by the Right Rev.
Fordham was founded as St John's College in 1841 by the Irish-born coadjutor bishop (later archbishop) of the Diocese of New York, John Hughes.
In 1845, the seminary church, Our Lady of Mercy, was built.
For both financial and personnel reasons, in 1846 Bishop Hughes was happy to sell St John's College to a religious order with an international reputation as professional educators.
The college received its charter from the New York State Legislature in 1846, and the first Jesuits began to arrive about three months later.
In 1847, Fordham's first school in Manhattan opened.
Some traditions credit the college's church bells as the inspiration for this poem. It was also in 1847 that the American poet Edgar Allan Poe arrived in the village of Fordham and began a friendship with the college Jesuits that would last throughout his life.
1854 - Debating Society established at the college
1855 - First theatrical productions put on
In 1855, the first student stage production, Henry IV, was presented by the St John's Dramatic Society.
Fordham's baseball team, which played its first game on September 13, 1859, made several contributions to the history of baseball in the nineteenth century, and played a key role in introducing the game to Cuba and Latin America.
On November 3, 1859, Fordham played the first college baseball game with modern nine-man teams against the now-defunct St Francis Xavier College in Manhattan.
1859 - First official Baseball game
1860 - Seminary building sold to the Jesuits for $45,000 & Alumni Society is founded
After playing for several American major league teams, he returned home and played in the first organized baseball game in Cuba on December 27, 1874.
The football program was first established in 1882 and gained national renown in the early 20th century.
1885 - A Military Cadet Batallion is established
The college built a science building in 1886, lending more legitimacy to science in the curriculum.
A $38 million renovation of Hughes Hall, built in 1891, fits the French gothic building with a digital age interior.
In 1897, academic regalia for students at commencement was first adopted.
1902 - John Ignatius Coveney writes "The Ram" which becomes the University's fight song & First intercollegiate Basketball game
On June 21, 1904, the Regents of the University of the State of New York consented to allow the board of trustees to authorize the opening of a law school and a medical school.
The Fordham University School of Medicine was established in 1905 and opened with six students and seven professors.
1907 - The name officially changes to Fordham University & Fordham University Press is created
In 1907 the university’s present name was adopted.
In 1907, the year that Francis J. Spellman, the future Cardinal Archbishop of New York, arrived at Rose hill as a first year, St John's College was still a small school with only 109 students.
Doctor James Walsh, Dean of Fordham’s School of Medicine, having gained the approval of the University, published the first title of the Press, The Makers of Modern Medicine, in 1907.
Fordham University Press, established in 1907, the seventh oldest university press in the country and the nation’s oldest Catholic university press, is the not-for-profit publishing arm of the University.
Marymount College was an independent women's college that was founded in 1907 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.
In 1908, Fordham University Press was established.
The school found a home of its own when a new building was constructed near the Bathgate entrance in 1911.
In September 1912, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung delivered a series of lectures at Fordham; these lectures marked his historic break with the theories of his colleague, Sigmund Freud.
The College of St Francis Xavier was closed in 1913, and various Fordham colleges were opened at the Woolworth Building in Manhattan to fill the void.
By 1916 the number of students grew to 259 and faculty numbered 110.
The first women to attend Fordham came earlier in the century: the Law School began accepting female students in 1918.
The university closed its medical school in 1919, citing a lack of endowment and reduced university funds overall due to the First World War.
On a chilly day in 1920, a man named Hugh S. O'Reilly crossed Fordham's Rose Hill campus for an appointment with then-President Father Edward P. Tivnan, SJ. He pitched the idea of starting a business school at Fordham, and he succeeded.
The Gabelli School of Business began in 1920 in Manhattan as the School of Accounting.
In 1921 President Tivnan announced the school was closing its doors.
The first graduate school, the Medical School, lasted only sixteen years and was discontinued in 1921 due largely but not solely to financial reasons.
In 1936 Father Gannon was brought in from St Peter's College in Jersey City to repair the damage and rebuild Fordham.
In 1938, Victor Hess, the Nobel Prize in Physics winner for his discovery of cosmic rays, escaped Nazi persecution and found a professional home at Rose Hill.
On September 30, 1939, Fordham participated in the world's first televised football game, defeating Waynesburg College, 34–7.
Fordham confirmed its place on the business-education map when, in 1939, the school joined the prestigious American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business and was awarded a chapter of its honor society for outstanding business students, Beta Gamma Sigma.
The 1940s bore witness to two official presidential visits at Fordham, the first by president Franklin D. Roosevelt on October 28, 1940, during his campaign for a third term.
The first female students are admitted, and five women – Margaret Brew, Margaret Casey, Roma Fiore, Mary Wallace Turney and Mary Margaret Wallace – would graduate in the Class of 1948.
24, 1957, Fordham signs a contract with the City of New York for 6.9 acres of land, which would later create the Lincoln Center campus.
In 1957 Father Edwin A. Quain, S.J. became director of the Press.
In 1961, the Lincoln Center campus opened as part of the Lincoln Square Renewal Project.
It is a mark of courage and resolution." On November 2, 1964, during his campaign for the United States Senate, Robert F. Kennedy made another visit to Fordham and gave an address at the Rose Hill gymnasium that attracted a crowd of 2,800.
In 1964 the all-women college opened.
In response to internal demands for a more "liberalized" curriculum, the university created Bensalem College in 1967.
Fordham established itself as a provider of graduate business education in 1969, with the launch of its first master's degree programs at the Lincoln Center campus.
The School of Law was the first to occupy the new campus, but the academic programs at 302 Broadway were moved to the new location in 1969.
In 1969, students organized a sit-in on the main road leading to Rose Hill in response to an announcement that President Richard Nixon would be speaking on campus.
The board of trustees was reorganized in 1969 to include a majority of nonclerical members, which officially made the university an independent institution.
The first 180 graduate-level business degrees are awarded on July 28, 1971.
Quain continued as director until 1972 when, due to failing health, he retired.
While the Jesuit order thereby lost full control of Fordham, the board of trustees continues to maintain the institution as a "Jesuit, Catholic university." The College of Pharmacy closed in 1972 due to declining enrollment.
Fordham College at Rose Hill became coeducational in 1974 when it merged with Thomas More College.
His wife, Regina M. Pitaro, is a 1976 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill and a trustee fellow of Fordham University.
Mario J. Gabelli is a philanthropist, investor, and chairman and chief executive officer of GAMCO Investors, Inc., the firm he founded in 1977.
George Fletcher, an editor with Father Quain, was appointed director and served until 1991.
In 1997 United States News and World Report ranked Fordham Law School 28th out of 179 law schools nationwide, and it ranked the Graduate School of Social Service 11th out of 127 such programs across the country.
The opening of the Walsh Family Library in 1997 was an essential ingredient in Fordham’s bid to become a serious research institution.
Fordham unifies the undergraduate, graduate and executive business programs under the Gabelli School of Business, headed by Dean Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the undergraduate business school since 2007.
In the autumn of 2007, the university announced its intention to seek buyers for the Marymount campus.
On February 17, 2008, the university announced the sale of the campus for $27 million to EF Schools, a chain of private language-instruction schools.
By contrast, when Father Joseph M. McShane launched the Excelsior | Ever Upward | Campaign for Fordham in 2009, he boldly set a goal of a half-billion dollars.
In gratitude, the University renamed the undergraduate business college the Gabelli School of Business in 2010; five years later, the undergraduate and graduate business schools were unified under the Gabelli name.
Fordham University Press also has a long history of publishing books focusing on the New York region and in 2010 established the Empire State Editions imprint to better brand and market these popular regional books.
Gabelli also funded the Gabelli School PhD program, which welcomed its first students in fall 2016. It is this belief that inspired the couple’s transformative 2010 gift to Fordham University, the largest in the University’s history, a gift that revolutionized business education at Fordham.
After Tartar’s untimely death in 2014, Richard Morrison became Editorial Director and has concentrated on diversifying the list by acquiring books in cultural studies, critical race theory, and gender studies.
In 2014, the university successfully completed a five-year, $500 million campaign; the project surpassed expectations by raising more than $540 million.
The university went on to renovate and expand its Lincoln Center campus, opening in 2014 its renovated Law School, as well as an additional undergraduate dormitory, McKeon Hall.
The undergraduate and graduate business schools were officially unified under the Gabelli School of Business name in February 2015, providing a continuous spectrum of business education.
Gabelli also funded the Gabelli School PhD program, which welcomed its first students in fall 2016.
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Fordham University competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York University | 1831 | $8.5B | 15,000 | 169 |
| Hofstra University | 1935 | $410.0M | 2,429 | 204 |
| Georgetown University | 1789 | $1.6B | 3,457 | 198 |
| University at Buffalo | 1988 | $760.0M | 5,295 | 648 |
| Temple University | 1884 | $2.7B | 13,420 | 114 |
| Trinity College | 1823 | $49.0M | 1,361 | 55 |
| Marist College | 1929 | $217.4M | 2,522 | 23 |
| Mercy College | 1950 | $146.7M | 2,004 | 97 |
| Wesleyan University | 1831 | $225.0M | 500 | 10 |
| Duquesne University | 1878 | $287.5M | 1,000 | 99 |
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Fordham University may also be known as or be related to Fordham University, Fordham University - Fordham College at Lincoln Center and The Fordham House.