NEW YORK, NY — Scrolling through her Twitter feed for the seventh time in an hour, Alicia Dobson (FCLC ’21) considered reaching out to her friends to make plans for that evening, but ultimately concluded that the other freshmen, who, like her, had just arrived on campus without knowing almost anyone three weeks earlier, were probably busy.
“It’s not a big deal, and I don’t want to seem clingy,” said Dobson, who silently wondered whether she made a mistake in skipping the optional, “fun” orientation programming earlier that month. “I figure that if people are doing stuff, they’ll invite me if they want me around. No need to make things awkward by trying to butt in.”
“I thought about asking Alexis [Jacobs (FCLC ’21), Dobson’s roommate] what she was up to, but she left thirty minutes ago and seemed to be in a rush. She’s probably hanging out with her old high school friends or something.” After a pause, Dobson, who had completed all of the readings for that semester thus far, and whose midterms remain over a month away, admitted, “It’s probably best for me to get some studying in anyway.”
“I would head down to the dining hall to talk to people, but it’s already 7:40, and it closes at 8. I don’t want to make the dining services people stay late to clean my dishes.” Dobson then gathered a couple of stray sheets of paper from her otherwise spotless desk and remarked, “I might as well get some cleaning done tonight. That’s nice and productive.”
“Anyway,” Dobson offered, “I haven’t called my mom in a while, and by the time she’s done talking, I’ll be ready to go to bed anyway.” [Editor’s Note: Her mom was out with friends.]
At press time, Alexis Jacobs was seen in the floor lounge across the hall, deleting a Facebook message to Dobson which had been halfway written.

Beloved school mascot, Rameses the Ram, has been a revered and loyal member of the Fordham community since 1906.
…Or has he?
From 1925 to 1975, Fordham was bolstered by the presence of a live ram, Rameses, as our school mascot. Rameses’ presence singlehandedly caused school spirit to rise a staggering 85.449% from before the time of The Ram Fam’s naissance. During this 50 year period, peace reigned supreme (except for when Rameses was viciously slaughtered, kidnapped six times by rival schools, or met an early demise). However, it turns out that Rameses has been a very busy ram since vanishing from the public eye in 1975.
Behold:
You heard it here first, America. Since 1975, Rameses the Ram has been two-timing Fordham, New York City’s only Jesuit university, by serving as a mascot to the University of North Carolina “Tar Heels.”
A few journalistic and necessary questions:

1. What the heck is a tar heel?
2. Why would Rameses betray us, the good people of the Fordham community, like this?
3. Was it because UNC is a better sports school with more money and grass (Rameses’ two favorite green things)?
4. Most importantly, why is the Fordham faculty and staff covering this up?

A few journalistic and necessary answers:

1. After consulting the two most reliable sources on the internet, I found that a tar heel is:

(a) According to Wikipedia: “Because the exact history of the term is unknown, a number of legends have developed to explain it. One such legend claims it to be a nickname given during the U.S. Civil War, because of the state’s importance on the Confederate side, and the fact that the troops ‘stuck to their ranks like they had tar on their heels.’”
(b) According to Urban Dictionary: “An occupant of UNC-Chapel hill. A fairly smart, pretentious hick. Someone who probably couldn’t make it in to Duke.”
So, a tar heel is apparently some Confederate bozo who walked in tar during the Civil War. Not only is a tar heel not a ram, it is also not an animal at all. WHAT THE FRICK, RAMESES?!
2. See #3
3. Yes, this is precisely why he did this.
4. Isn’t it obvious? Letting it slip that Rameses would rather hang out at a school whose mascot isn’t even named after an animal would decimate the Fordham community; enrollment numbers would plummet, and all students and professors would enter a depression so severe that even the ghosts at the Westchester campus would feel it.
Well, we at Stove’s don’t have any issue with exposing the fraud that is Rameses the Ram, because this is a serious publication of integrity, whose sole mission is to seek the truth and spread justice for all.
In the end, one distraught student, Amy Amsterdam (FCLC ‘21), eloquently summed up the feelings of the Fordham community following this earth-shattering discovery:
“New York is my campus and Fordham is my school, but Rameses the Ram is not my mascot.”