Fordham University  is a private research university in New York City. Founded by the Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841, it is the oldest Catholic university in the northeastern United States, the third-oldest university in New York, and the only Jesuit university in New York City.

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Established as St. John's College by John Hughes, then a coadjutor bishop of New York, it was placed in the care of the Society of Jesus shortly thereafter, and has since become a Jesuit-affiliated independent school under a lay board of trustees. The college's first president, John McCloskey, was later the first Catholic cardinal in the United States. While governed independently of the Church since 1969, every president of Fordham University since 1846 has been a Jesuit priest, and the curriculum remains influenced by Jesuit educational principles.

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Fordham enrolls approximately 15,300 students from more than 65 countries, and is composed of ten constituent colleges, four of which are undergraduate and six of which are postgraduate, across three campuses in southern New York State: the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx, the Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan's Upper West Side, and the Westchester campus in West Harrison, New York. In addition to these locations, the university maintains a study abroad center in London and field offices in Spain and South Africa. The university offers degrees in over 60 disciplines.

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Fordham's alumni and faculty include U.S. Senators and representatives, four cardinals of the Catholic Church, several theologians, several U.S. governors and ambassadors, a number of billionaires, two directors of the CIA, Academy Award and Emmy-winning actors, royalty, a foreign head of state, a White House Counsel, a vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, a U.S. Postmaster General, a U.S. Attorney General, a U.S. vice-presidential candidate, and a president of the United States, Donald Trump.

The university's athletic teams, the Rams, include a football team that boasts a win in the Sugar Bowl, two Pro Football Hall of Famers, two All-Americans, two Canadian Football League All-Stars, and numerous NFL players; the Rams also participated in history's first televised college football game in 1939 and history's first televised college basketball game in 1940. Fordham's baseball team played the first collegiate baseball game under modern rules in 1859, has fielded 56 major league players, and holds the record for most NCAA Division I baseball victories in history.