By Erin Shanahan
Freshman Jonathan Charles Evans combines his love of music and business. (Courtesy of Jonathan Charles Evans).
Freshman Jonathan Charles Evans, better known as JC, arrived at Fordham University from Cleveland, Ohio or, as he describes it, “the best city on the planet.” He arrived in order to acquire a business administration major with a concentration in marketing and to pursue his dream job designing and managing musical festivals. During his first year at Fordham, Evans has developed a passion for Fordham’s Residence Hall Association and has played an intricate part in organizing this year’s Fordham Dance Marathon.
Although Evans is enjoying living in New York City, he is quite confident that there is no place better than his hometown, Cleveland, Ohio.
Specifically, Evans has a special place in his heart for Shaker Heights, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland where he grew up with his parents and two siblings.
Evans is considering majoring in business administration with a concentration in marketing. Interestingly, this decision came as a result of his passion for live music.
“I consider myself a professional concert-goer. I spend all my money on concerts and events, it’s my version of studying,” Evans said.
One day, Evans hopes to use what he learns at Gabelli in order to work in the live music industry.
“I’m a promoter at heart,” Evans said. “Hence the marketing. But by majoring in business administration, I get more versatility.”
Evans has attended to some incredible concerts. Some of his favorite musicians include Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, Kanye West and Hardwell. Evans’ favorite concert, however, was Hermitude at Bonnaroo 2016.
“My friends and I started the most insane mosh-dance pit,” he said. “Hermitude called it out while it was happening, it was surreal.”
Here at Fordham, Evans is the RHA President of Alumni Court South. In addition, he took on extra responsibilities for FDM as the entertainment chair of the event.
“We had 12 hours of entertainment, with four bands and a live DJ set.” He added, “The Morale Dance is really fun too. It’s a line-dance that we do every hour on-the-hour throughout the day. It’s a blast because everyone gets really into it.”
Evans could not have been more pleased by the result of RHA’s hard work this year. “Flipping up the signs at the end of FDM and seeing all the energy in the room was awesome,” Evans said. “It’s great to know that all the money will be going to the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation to fight pediatric cancer.”
This year, Fordham’s RHA raised over $90,000 for the B+ Foundation through FDM and the philanthropy month program in, eclipsing last year’s total by more than $30,000.
“The rave was pretty dope too,” he added.
As a freshman, Evans has been lucky to interact with some incredible student leaders on campus. He especially looks up to Haley Hauge, GSB ’18.
“She has an incredible ability to effectively lead and organize a team,” Evans said. “I’ve rarely seen this done so well.”
Evans also works in Network Operations for Fordham IT and is a member of the Club Tennis team. In his free time, he does freelance videography and he is currently developing a website.
He insists that “everyone attends FDM next year, as we’ve got something big planned and you’re not going to want to miss it.”
