By LAURA SANICOLA
On April 1, students gathered in A-Lot to test their climbing skills and win prizes. (Courtesy of Commuting Students Association)
From Monday, March 31 to Friday, April 4, Commuting Students Association (CSA) hosted its annual Commuter Week event, entitled “Commuter Flix,” a play-on-words of the popular on-demand media streaming service, Netflix. The program featured daily events based on popular movies and television shows, including Grease, “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” National Treasure and The Hobbit. According to CSA executive president Antonio Vozza, FCRH ’14, the event attracted an unprecedented number of students from across campus.
“At last year’s event we had about 1000 people show up for the entire week,” said Vozza. “As of Thursday night, we are already at 1100 people, and we expect around 1800 people by the end of tonight’s Latin Gala, which is co-sponsored by El Grito de Lares.” Monday’s event alone attracted over 350 students and included an obstacle course, carnival games and snow cone and cotton candy machines.
Commuter Week is comprised of primarily free programs and is open to residents and commuters alike. CSA holds various events throughout the year, including Thanks-Give-Away, a Thanksgiving charity event where students donate cash or cans of food in return for a chance to win prizes.
It is clear that commuters make up a substantial amount of the student body, with over one-fifth of the class of 2017 residing off campus or commuting from home. CSA’s mission is “to provide a single voice for commuting students, develop and implement policies, services and programs and represent commuting students’ particular needs and concerns.”
In his third year on the executive board, Vozza, who commutes daily from Westchester County, N.Y., admits that living off-campus and being active in school and CSA complicates things.
“All of the members of our e-board are commuters, and that can make it pretty difficult to plan events like Thanks-Give-Away and Commuter Week, because there’s constant coordination necessary to figure out who can be where at what time,” said Vozza. “Our biggest obstacle is balancing schoolwork and friends, ability to do homework and drive home and then come back for another event…and snow days, of course.”
The CSA general board is largely comprised of commuters and “res-muters,” that is, students who live in off-campus housing. The goal of commuter week, however, is not to further separate residents and commuters but to bridge the gap between the two populations on campus.
“We don’t want to make residents think Commuter Flix — or any of our events — are exclusively for commuters,” Vozza said. He attributes CSA’s recent growth in numbers and visibility to the collaboration with the Residence Hall Association (RHA), the Campus Activities Board (CAB), the United Student Government (USG) and especially current RHA president, Sarah Hill, GSB ‘14, who helps advertise CSA events.
“Sarah has done an amazing job in getting the notification of our programs spread throughout the residence halls,” Vozza said. “It is always great when former RHA members move off-campus and join CSA as well. We owe a lot to RHA support, and to that of all Fordham students who have supported us, particularly this week.”
