Students Campaign to Host Presidential Debate at Fordham

By Katie Meyer

The governor may not have debated at Fordham this fall, but students may still be able to hold out hope for some political action to come to Rose Hill.

A small group of students is spearheading an initiative to have Fordham considered as a site for the 2016 presidential debate. The students, United Student Government (USG) senators Thomas Samuelson, FCRH ’16, Evan Swager, GSB ’16, and Thomas Roemer, GSB ’16, are the same people behind September’s Change.org petition to bring the gubernatorial debate to Fordham.

In late January, Fordham’s Young Alumni Committee reached out to USG president Nevin Kulangara, GSB ’15, to discuss the idea of hosting the debate, and Kulangara said he immediately thought of Samuelson, Swager and Roemer, as they had “analyzed the situation more closely” than he had. He referred the committee to them, and they quickly took over the initiative.

The group, as well as the Young Alumni Committee, did some research into the requirements for hosting the debate, and decided the endeavor seemed “feasible.” As it turns out, Fordham’s New York location, coupled with its relatively extensive property (for a city school) is a selling point.

“There are a lot of parking and space requirements,” Swager said. “Because we actually have a campus, [they] would be able to have it here in New York City.”

In addition, the Rose Hill Gym and McGinley Center facility would be large and well-equipped enough to accommodate the debate, Swager said.

That combination of desirable qualities is rare, and eliminates many schools.

“The qualifications are things like, you have to have X number of hotel rooms within, like, 12 miles, which disqualifies somewhere like LSU [Louisiana State University],” Swager said. “LSU would be a great place, obviously because it’s huge. But, there are not enough places for people to stay. And then Columbia would be great; they have plenty of hotels, but you have to have, like, 1000 parking spots within 10 miles.”

Having ascertained that Fordham could meet the standards, the group took the idea to the administration. They were met with cautious approval, but there was one big obstacle: cost.

Just sending the application, according to Swager and Samuelson, will cost somewhere around $10,000. But as for the cost of the entire affair?

“They want a couple million,” Samuelson said.

Though it may be a hard number to stomach, the students are confident that there is still a shot at being able to move forward with the plan.

“Although McShane [Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university] hasn’t technically said yes and given us the go-ahead for it, he also hasn’t said no,” Swager said. “He’s just waiting to see where things go.”

Specifically, he is waiting to see if a debate would be worthwhile. Swager explained that this will be determined by gauging student interest.

“Ultimately, no one wants to spend $2 million on an event that no one’s going to care about,” he said.

So now Swager, Samuelson and Roemer are on a mission to prove that students will indeed care about having a presidential debate at Fordham. They are currently circulating a petition, and aim to collect 3,000 signatures from students; 2,000 from Rose Hill, and 1,000 from Lincoln Center. They are also putting together a cost benefit analysis based on past host universities that concretely shows how Fordham could benefit.

Kulangara, for one, thinks the benefits are clear.

“Hosting a would put Fordham in a national spotlight,” he said in an email. “Universities such as Hofstra [which hosted debates in 2008 and 2012] have seen increases in their applicant pools after hosting.”

The Young Alumni Committee feels similarly. In a letter they sent to McShane about the possibility of a debate, the comittee said that despite the “significant cost,” the debate’s aftermath at Hofstra “illustrated the power of the high-profile publicity and positive exposure that such an undertaking inevitably brings to an institution, along with the great privilege of playing a part in determining the next president of the United States.”

Swager and Samuelson said they plan to spend the next two to three weeks gathering signatures, and will then present their arguments to the administration. They do not have much more time than that, as the applications are due on March 31. Before anything can happen, they said an administrative committee will likely be put together to deal with the extensive application process.

After that, Swager said, it is all a matter of waiting. If Fordham’s application is indeed sent, he, for one, will be waiting with high hopes.

“They picked Belmont [University in Nashville, Tennessee]…Lynn [University in Boca Raton, Florida]…there’s no real formula behind why they pick places,” he said. “It just kind of depends on how, I guess, their application comes in; how much they’re willing to spend. That’s why I think we have a good chance.”