Fordham Shift

When the black-robed, Jesuit community of New York's Fordham University sat down to lunch in the refectory one noon last week, Aloysius Joseph Hogan was at the head of the table as well as the college, with Robert Ignatius Gannon on his right. When the community rose, Father Gannon was at the table's head. with Father Hogan on his right. During the meal a young Jesuit scholastic had brought Father Hogan an order from Rome sending him on to be dean of Georgetown University's graduate school, upping Father Gannon to Fordham's presidency. Thus simply, as it must in all 65 U. S. Jesuit schools every six years, the administration of the largest Jesuit university in the country changed hands.

Although most Jesuits, after 13 years of secluded study, have left home and family well behind, many a New Yorker recognized Fordham's new head as a native. Son of the late President Frank Stanislaus Gannon of Norfolk Southern R. R., slim, curly-headed Father Gannon has been a Jesuit for 23 of his 43 years. No stranger to Fordham, he taught there as a scholastic, directed student dramatics, organized a play shop. After his ordination he studied educational methods at the Sorbonne, Oxford, Cambridge, Perugia, Louvain. In 1930 the Jesuit Father General sent him to reopen St. Peter's College in Jersey City, N. J., closed since the War. For his first 80 students, Father Gannon rented four offices from the Chamber of Commerce, an adjoining kitchen for a chemistry laboratory. Last fortnight St. Peter's, humming with an enrollment of 400, dedicated its first collegiate building, Gannon Hall.

After grace and handshakings President Gannon entered on his duties. With 7,300 students, Fordham has outgrown its grassy 75-acre campus in The Bronx, spilled over into four floors of Manhattan's Woolworth Building. Promptly the new president announced that sprawling Fordham had finished its era of expansion, would concentrate on extracurricular activities to enrich campus life, bring students and faculty closer together. Said he: "Having a big registration is nothing to boast about. We won't add a single student to the rolls during the next six years."

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