If Transylvania University does, in fact, exist in a “bubble,” then that bubble might soon burst, thanks to a new focus on making the school more diverse.

“While we may not be where we want to be with the diversity of our campus in a whole range of things, or even our awareness of what diversity is on our campus, as a campus we have a commitment to it that has been renewed over the last year or so,” said Dr. Carole Barnsley, co-leader of Sexual Awareness and Gender Education (SAGE), adviser to T-Unity and assistant professor of religion.

A prime example of this commitment was the hiring of Eduardo Nino-Moreno as director of campus diversity and inclusion four months ago. Nino-Moreno’s background includes over 20 years of experience working for the United Nations, which has given him a deep perspective on issues of diversity. He has already become a strong voice for change at Transy. He said real diversity goes beyond the parameters of race and religion.

“Everybody is part of diversity. I am diversity, you are diversity, she is diversity, he is diversity. … All of us bring something different to the table,” Nino-Moreno said.

President R. Owen Williams echoed that belief.

“I think of diversity as touching the lives of as many different kinds of people as we can make happen on our campus, and including the lives and perspectives of as many as is possible,” Williams said. “I think of diversity as being about religious inclusion, racial inclusion, geographic inclusion, international inclusion.”

In fact, international, geographic, religious, racial and cultural diversity are all areas that are being addressed by multiple groups on campus as part of the diversity focus.

Williams noted that less than 1 percent of Transy’s student population is from outside of the country, while other colleges with enrollment similar to Transy range from 2 percent (Centre College) to 10 percent (Grinnell College).

While 70 percent of Transy students study abroad, Williams believes that those experiences don’t bring enough diversity to the campus.

“Obviously it’s great that our students get away and experience the world through their own first-hand travel and education experiences outside of the United States, … but it’s not enough,” Williams said. “I want people to have a daily, ongoing exposure to international perspectives and cultures.”

Currently, students who call Transy home hail from such countries as Germany, China, Korea and Taiwan.

“Some of the best liberal arts colleges in this country have students on their campuses from as many as 50 other countries, and it would be great if we had that … kind of diversity,” Williams said.

Last fall, representatives from Transy visited Panama in efforts to establish a working relationship with the country that could lead to an increase in international students at Transy.

“We stand to receive easily a minimum of half a dozen students from there or more in the future, with the added advantage that there are students from all over the world there because there is a huge expatriate community in Panama,” said Nino-Moreno.

Other countries that could become the focus of recruitment efforts are China, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and perhaps Honduras, once a successful program in Panama has been formed.

“I think with time it would be great if we could get to around 8 percent international students on campus, but that will take five to 10 years to make happen, because we have to create an infrastructure to support that,” Williams said.

Such infrastructure would include establishing host families, providing activities for international students to pursue over extended breaks, and other “safety nets” that might keep international students from feeling isolated, according to Williams.

There is also interest in increasing the number of states from which students hail, which currently stands at 27. Nino-Moreno stated that the office of campus diversity and inclusion supports the efforts of the admissions office, which is actively recruiting students from outside Kentucky who will be representative of other ethnic and cultural origins.

“(The student body is) not as diverse as it needs to be. … Too many people come with a fairly similar background, experience and perspective, and what we need to do is expand that in a way that really opens our eyes to the whole world that you all are going to be operating in,” Williams said.

This focus on diversity also touches religious life at Transy, as this year’s hiring of Interim Associate Dean of Interreligious Life Nancy Jo Kemper demonstrates.

“We have moved toward an interfaith approach to religion on our campus. We have far too few Jewish students, Muslim students, Hindi or Buddhist students on our campus, and we need to have a religious dialogue that reaches out to all of those groups,” Williams said.

“We are … working to articulate what it means to be a church-related institution, rooted in the particularity of a tradition that is itself committed to dialogue, openness and hospitality,” Kemper said in an article in the Sept. 15 issue of The Rambler, “while expanding the capacity of the university to serve students from many religious traditions.”

While 86 percent of Transy students identify themselves as Caucasian, an increase in racial diversity is not the focus of new diversity initiatives. Nino-Moreno noted that though it has been “historically easier” to identify diversity by appearance, “cultural identity” is the factor that expands understanding. Unlike race, factors such as religion, sexual orientation, financial background and cultural beliefs are not physically able to be detected.

“I think that … the whole issue with diversity and inclusion is to try and include the wide range of voices and perspectives, but the fact is that we don’t always get them because we belong to our own. We encounter new things,” Barnsley said.

Some of these new voices and perspectives can be found in the Lexington community.

Nino-Moreno, who is currently talking with several members of the greater Lexington community, including Mayor Jim Gray’s advisers, professors at the University of Kentucky, the Urban League of Lexington and the Community Action League, sees great opportunities in the future for Transy students to extend their experiences outside Transy.

“Since we all believe that Transylvania is not in a bubble, we have to go beyond our former fences and reach out,” Nino-Moreno said.

Numerous groups all over campus, including the Diversity Action Council, T-Unity, SAGE, VOICE and first-year programs all offer students opportunities to both discuss diversity issues and make connections in the surrounding communities.

“I think that VOICE’s definition of diversity pertains to the idea that everyone brings different experiences to the table, and that definition, if applied to Transy, would imply that our campus is diverse. However, I also think that there is potential to become more diverse if people begin to share their experiences with one another,” sophomore Anna Melnykovych, a member of VOICE, said.

Transy’s new connections in Panama, for example, have led to a discussion with Gray’s advisers about the possibility of establishing a sister city in Panama — a connection which would get Lexington in touch with the country’s rich thoroughbred horse industry.

Currently, a group of students and faculty make up the diversity and inclusion advisory board, a group which will report its discussions and concerns to the strategic plan working group. These dialogues will affect the focus and goals of the new strategic plan for diversity and inclusion.

Nino-Moreno’s recently formed office has experienced a significant amount of feedback in many forms. A campus climate survey was sent out shortly before noon on Monday; by 5 p.m. that day, more than 40 responses had been submitted.

Nino-Moreno hopes to instill several programs in the future, including a student-run support network, a rotating gallery of student-contributed work to the Diversity Nook and more involvement from recent alumni.

While Transy’s liberal arts education philosophy encourages an exposure to different schools of thought and ideas, several members of the campus community share the opinion that classroom experiences just aren’t enough.

“If we’re really going to learn about religion, you can’t just study it on a theoretical basis in class; you’ve got to be surrounded by people who represent those different experiences and perspectives,” Williams said.

“If we think of people as coming from different perspectives and thinking in different ways, you have to experience that. You can’t read about it, you can’t hear about it,” Barnsley said. “You have to go to other places. You have to have other people come to you. And that ‘other people’ doesn’t have to be from a different country. It could be from a different orientation of just about anything.”

Despite the new office and the amount of discussion it has fostered, Nino-Moreno believes that the task of increasing campus diversity lies with the students.

“It’s been only four months (since the start of this office), but it’s amazing the number of things that have started happening,” Nino-Moreno said. “Now, things happen because of the students, not because of (administrators).”

Williams agreed.

“I’ve always believed that students learn more from students than anybody else, so the more different kinds of perspective that we can bring to the table, the better. And that’s always been my hope for this place,” he said.

With the new strategic enrollment plan in full swing, Transylvania University’s admissions office is starting to see an increase in numbers.

“After implementing an astounding 33 new admissions initiatives, the plan is already paying off,” said President R. Owen Williams in his New Year’s email update to the university. “With the early deadline for applications having just passed, we have 25 percent more applicants than ever before.”

As of Tuesday morning, applications are now up 26 percent, according to Brad Goan, vice president of enrollment and dean of admissions, with out-of-state applications up 54 percent and in-state applications up 17 percent.

“We need make sure the right number of those students come to Transylvania,” said Goan.

Concerning future goals for enrollment, Goan would like to see an incoming first-year class of 348 students.

“It would increase a little bit over the next five years,” Goan said. “If everything worked according to plan, we’d be looking (in) the fall of 2016 at enrollment that was just short of 1,300.”

At the beginning of the fall 2011 term, enrollment was down to a slim 1,029 students, 259 of them being first-years. A strikingly low number, 259 is 55 fewer than the class before it and 51 fewer than the class average over the past five years.

But why the sudden drop?

“The reason why we got banged up last year (was) because people chose to go to places with lower cost that didn’t have as much opportunities as we have,” said Goan. “One of the things we needed to do was better explain to the market that this was a real value.”

Efforts to ensure that potential students understand this “real value” are already being executed, such as the posting of various Transylvania advertisement videos online.

The most recent of these videos compares the personal Transylvania experience to that of attending a “Big-State College.” The next video to be posted will be about financial aid.

“This is a pretty aggressive plan,” said Goan. “To say that we are doing a hundred things, that’s not an exaggeration. … They add up.”

Other initiatives that will improve enrollment include program, market, and process developments.

Program developments consist of “things that we aren’t offering that would attract students,” according to Goan. In an attempt to meet the wants and needs of potential students, various system changes and extracurricular activities have been added, such as an enhanced fine arts scholarships, as well as more athletic teams like lacrosse and a cheer and dance squad.

Market developments require outreach. The board of admissions has targeted seven metropolitan areas in which to advertise our university brand: Chicago; Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio; Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas; Indianapolis; Nashville, Tenn.; Pittsburg; and the Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas.

In these targeted locations, solicitors of the university either contact or meet guidance counselors and encourage them to make a campus visit. Guidance counselors are the second biggest influencers in the college selection process after parents.

Right now, two programs are being planned to receive 50 out-of-state guidance counselors for a visit, 25 counselors for each event, “people who will go back and be brand ambassadors for us,” said Goan.

The biggest set of strategies, and considerably the “less sexy,” are the process improvements, “little adjustments — things that we think will matter,” said Goan. These include items such as making website changes and ramping up communication with students on Twitter and Facebook,

Even as numbers continue to increase, Goan wanted to add that the board of admissions will still be selective about the students it accepts.

“We feel like the strategies are working so far as we had hoped,” Goan said. “All that remains is for these students to choose Transylvania or not.”

For some people, winter break means putting in long days of sleeping in and other tiresome activities that tend to happen in front of electronic screens. For the Transylvania Choir, however, it meant going on its annual tour.

Though the choir had planned to tour Europe in May, by October it was clear that the current state of the economy was going to prevent many of the participating students from affording the expense of an international trip.

Instead, the group chose a domestic tour, with performances Jan. 3-6 across four venues in Georgia and Florida and then a final concert at Transy Jan. 11.

Dr. Gary Anderson, professor of music and director of choral ensembles, always coordinates tours with contacts suggested by the alumni office, and this year it recommended a cluster of alumni in Florida.

The Transylvania Choir toured Florida and Georgia during the last week of winter break. They performed in four venues, but still had time left over for some fun activities.

“That turned out to be not only a great deal of fun for us, frankly, because we went to Fort Myers, Fla.,” said Anderson, “but we connected with a lot of alumni, which made it, as a university tour, really worthwhile, too.”

Though Anderson had chosen the concert’s repertoire last summer with a European audience in mind, the same selections worked well for a domestic tour. The concert included several pieces by European composers, followed by a few songs from Transy Boys a Cappella (TBA), and ended with a section of American folk songs and spirituals.

The tour is undoubtedly an enjoyable experience for the choir, but Anderson also emphasized its role in promoting the university. Each of the concerts was attended by alumni, and many high school students were introduced to Transy through the concerts, as well.

“For me one of the best experiences was singing at the high school in Brandon, Fla., because the students were so excited to host us,” said sophomore choir member Rachel Norris. “After the concert, several students came up to me and said that they would now be looking at Transy as a possible school.”

“It turned out to be a terrific, terrific tour, even though we put it together really quickly. We connected to alumni, we connected to students. … Our folks had a ball,” Anderson said.

This year’s tour follows a long-standing tradition for the Transy Choir; with the exception of a single year, the choir has made an annual tour since the 1940s.

While Anderson has yet to determine when the choir will next plan a tour to Europe, he expects to reach a decision on the issue at some point this May term.

Trap and skeet are just two of the three disciplines in competitive clay pigeon shooting, the third of which is sporting clays. Clay pigeon shooting is the art of shooting a clay target (the “pigeon”) in the air with a shotgun.

The idea for the club came after first-year John DeReamer discussed it with a friend at Hampden-Sydney College who is on his school’s shotgun team.

“After talking to him about his club I thought it would be a great program for Transy,” said DeReamer. “I owe a lot of thanks to the (National Rifle Association) and (the University of Kentucky’s) shotgun team president, Daniel Birkenhauer, who helped our club become legitimate in the collegiate community.”

DeReamer has only been involved with shooting for three years, but the club has members of all levels.

“I haven’t been shooting as long as some of the other guys, but most shooters in collegiate clubs start in college or high school,” said DeReamer. “It is easy to pick up, and it can get quite addicting. … (The club) was formed with the goals of introducing new students to the sport, promoting gun safety and providing a competitive environment for experienced shooters to compete with other colleges. It is a great way for students to shoot in an organized manner.”

After DeReamer confronted senior Anderson Salinas, a fellow shooter, he decided it was time to get back into the game.

“Since I had gotten to college I hadn’t shot as much as I used to in high school and middle school, and had never competed before. So the idea appealed to me as a way to get back into shooting and try a new sport,” said Salinas.

Salinas enjoys the competitive and social nature of trap and skeet.

“Every Thursday we go out, and while we all are trying to beat each other and improve our skills, it’s also a very welcoming environment where we coach each other and try to make everyone a better shooter,” Salinas said.

Even though some members are experienced, not all those who join have to be well versed in trap and skeet.

“It is a great club sport for Transy students, faculty and staff. Both women and men can practice and compete in the same divisions with other colleges,” said DeReamer. “No experience or equipment is required; we have coaches that can instruct new shooters.”

“Since Trap and Skeet is not a NCAA sport it’s not the sort of activity that is going to be run by the athletic department; it is a student-run activity, and that’s a positive thing. Because of that it allows for a greater variety of students to participate,” said Salinas.

Future goals for the club include attending UK’s tournament this spring, going to the national tournament in San Antonio, organizing a Department of Public Safety vs. Trap and Skeet Club tournament, and making plans to host a tournament at the Bluegrass Sportsman’s League in the summer that will help raise money for the club.

“Students who enjoy the outdoors, hunting or competitive shooting now have an avenue to develop those interests through the university,” Salinas said. “I think it will help students considering Transy with those interests become more inclined to commit to coming here.”

Life takes all of us on different paths not knowing where we may end up. These paths help create an understanding of where we are meant to be.

Before Transy, assistant coach Matthew Martin spent time on staff at Furman University and the University of Cincinnati.

For Matthew Martin, assistant coach for the men’s basketball and golf teams, his paths led him to Transylvania. Before Martin ended up at Transy, he attended Furman University, where he was a practice player and manager for the basketball team. He left after a year to follow his coach to the University of Cincinnati. After spending one year there, where he continued to work as a student manager, he transferred to Transy to finish his college career.

While Martin was attending Transy, the golf team won the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference all three years and finished in the top 20 at the NCAA tournament each year. Martin also made the PING All-Great Lakes Region team his junior and senior years and was named a Cleveland Golf and Srixon All-American Scholar as a senior.

After graduating in 2010, Martin followed in the footsteps of his mother, father, brother and uncle by becoming a coach.

“I always thought coaching would be something I would want to do,” said Martin. “My parents (and family) are great resources, and now I know that coaching and teaching is all I want to do.”

Martin is in his second year of coaching at Transy, where he is also the head coach for the men’s junior varsity basketball team. He has come to cherish the time spent with other coaches.

“There’s no better coach to work for than Brian Lane,” said Martin. “Every day brings a new challenge and adventure. I’ve learned so much about coaching, people and relationships, and just how to enjoy what you do. Assistant coach Nate Valentine has also taught me a great deal.”

Another influence in Martin’s life, both academically and with coaching, has been Don Lane.

“I was fortunate enough to have him as a professor for many of my classes and tried to absorb as much about coaching and teaching as I could,” said Martin. “He also knows how to teach, and I want to model my teaching style after his.”

Martin’s colleagues see him as an essential part to the coaching staff because of his work ethic and experience.

“He has had the benefit of going through our program as a student-athlete and seeing the coaching from a different perspective. … He is one of those assistant coaches that knows the little things that must be done to run a successful program,” said Brian Lane, head coach of both men’s golf and basketball. “He also spent time with basketball staffs at Furman and University of Cincinnati, which enables him to draw from broader experiences.”

Coaching has been a rewarding experience for Martin and he understands the importance of his job.

“I love developing relationships with people, and seeing players grow as people and athletes,” said Martin. “One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that you cannot treat every player the same. Some players will respond differently to the same methods. That is why it is extremely important to get to know both your team as a collective unit and your players as individuals.”

“Matthew is a tireless worker that brings a great deal of experience to our staff,” Brian Lane said.

While many spent the days after Christmas lounged on the couch recovering from festivities, a group of four Transylvania University students and one dean took the opportunity to give back in the Dominican Republic.

“I thought a week couldn’t make a difference,” said junior Will Bryant, one of the students to make the trip. “But living at an orphanage and getting to know the kids, you can put a face to poverty.”

In the Latin America and Caribbean region alone, there are over 9.4 million children who have been impacted by the loss of one or both parents. There are 8.8 million children who are malnourished, and about 40 million people lack reading and writing skills needed for daily life and work.

Joining Bryant were juniors Hannah Johnson and Natalie Jones and first-year Elizabeth Hardt, along with the group’s faculty adviser, Dr. Kathleen Jagger, associate vice president and associate dean of the college, whom Johnson described as “just one of the kids for the week, completely treating us as equals and trusting in our abilities to plan and facilitate.”

Since the summer, Johnson had wanted to do a service project during winter break. She looked for a reliable program to join, but soon had the idea to start an organization through the university.

After talking to Bryant, who had an experience in Cambodia the year before, both students met with Karen Anderson, coordinator of community service and civic engagement, who helped them through the process.

“We wanted to give people who couldn’t find a service opportunity on their own to have a good bonding experience,” said Johnson.

The group looked to travel to a place where Transy had some ties to make the group’s first trip run smoothly. Jagger had been to the Dominican Republic before, so they agreed that it was a good place to start.

Domincan Republic

While in the Dominican Republic, the group stayed in an all-boys orphanage where they had camps, promoted English and Spanish literacy, and had fun with the kids through arts, crafts and other means of recreation.

“The kids just wanted to read,” said Johnson. “They picked reading over games and crafts. I think people here (at Transy) take learning for granted. They just loved it there.”

Bryant, who was in charge of the recreation station, said many kids brought books to the station to read instead of play.

“They love Clifford and other animal books,” said Johnson.

Despite the language barrier, both described having the ability to communicate well, especially through nonverbal messages.

“We just wanted to communicate love,” said Bryant. “You can do that through actions.”

“You could tell it meant a lot to the kids,” Johnson said. “You could go all week without talking to one of them, but they could come give you a hug at the end.”

Johnson talked about the attachment to the kids she developed.

“It was impossible not to want to adopt one and give them a good life in America, but the goal was to help the kids learn to help themselves,” she said.

Both Bryant and Johnson described the level of poverty that surrounded them as “eye-opening.” One aspect of the trip that made an impression on Johnson was the amount of stray dogs.

“They don’t have animal shelters. They can’t afford to feed their people; they’re not going to feed their dogs,” she said.

One day the group went to the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti for “Market Day,” where the citizens of the different countries were allowed to trade with one another. Even there, poverty from Haiti was evident.

“You could tell the difference in those from Haiti and those from the Dominican Republic,” said Johnson. “The best way to describe it was it seemed like everyone went into ‘survival mode.’ The Haitians were just wearing whatever they could find.”

“And there were five-foot Haitian men carrying 200- to 300-pound carts of rice,” said Bryant.

Though the experience was “fun but upsetting,” Johnson believes trips like these are necessary because they make people “better world citizens.”

“It was so humbling and it helps you to see the bigger picture of the world. Lots of times it’s hard to see outside of the Transy Bubble, but a trip like this helps you to realize things are still going on, and problems still are pressing issues,” she said.

“It was such a personal experience and it really changes the way you see things, even in such a short amount of time,” said Bryant.

“I remember when I got home, I walked in and saw my dad and my dog and our big-screen TV, and I just started crying,” Johnson said.

In the future, they hope to possibly extend their stay, wherever they may be.

“But even if we’re only there for a week, we’re a link in a bigger chain,” said Johnson.

The opinion page has gone through some changes this year. Beginning with the “What’s Right” and “What’s Left” columns, it has transitioned to include satire, “Cheers and Jeers” and a continuing presence of editorials, letters to the editor, guest columns, and other pieces.

Finding opinionated writers would seem to be an easy task at Transylvania. It should not be hard to find people with strong opinions and a capacity to express them on our campus. Unfortunately, that task has proved challenging for some time.

Of late, however, the Rambler staff has come to a realization: We weren’t asking the right people for opinions. Many students express strong opinions, implicit or explicit, every week. By participating in organizations, giving philanthropically and attending meetings, we express opinions. Indeed, campus organizations, be they Greek organizations, clubs, sports or officially sponsored groups, form a vital component of our community.

As such, The Rambler would like to extend an invitation, nay, a challenge, to all of our campus organizations: If your organization could recommend one change to how things are done at Transylvania, one change to official policy, or to institutional structure, or to curriculum, … what would it be? What does Transylvania need to change to be better?

We have extended an invitation to the leadership of several organizations already to write a piece, 500 words or less, about what should change at Transylvania. Next week, we will begin running those pieces.

In the meantime, if anyone has submissions you’d like to submit individually, you need only email them to rambler@transy.edu. The most innovative, viable and intriguing proposals will be published here.

If it sounds like a self-help book, that’s because it is one. However, it’s low on the weepy emotions and cheap gimmicks common to many books of this type. “Switch” is an intellectual look at how and why changes (like many New Year’s resolutions) fail and how to get around these problems.

The Heath brothers divide their findings into three sections, based on an unfortunately cheesy metaphor in which our emotional motivation is an elephant and our logical thinking is a human rider. The “elephant” must want to move in the same direction as the rider, or the rider will be powerless to keep it going in the long run. This is why it’s hard to resist a plate of cookies in front of you; the “rider” tires out and gives in to the “elephant’s” hunger.

The second section is about the rational mind, or the “rider.” The “rider” has to have a clear path and avoid confusion in order to direct the “elephant” to an ultimate destination. This is why vague ideas like “eat healthier” are difficult to keep to; there are innumerable definitions of this behavior. Something simpler like “switch to low-fat milk” is a much more attainable goal.

The third part of the book refers to the “path,” or the situation. As psychologists have been studying for decades, small changes to situations can alter behavior significantly. Making the path clearer and providing fewer distractions makes the change you are trying to effect much easier to accomplish. For instance, if you are trying to lose weight, not buying foods you know are triggers for overeating will help you because you will not have them around to eat.

It isn’t a perfect book. Some of the examples are very corporate and difficult to imagine applying to private life. Many of the “workshops” offered at the end of chapters are tedious and I confess I skipped them after the first few. Still, many of the stories in the book are inspiring and eye-opening.

I learned a lot about change and the human psyche from this book. Psychology buffs may already know a lot on this topic, but I think there is still much to be gained from the examples found within. Some are the results of interesting psychology experiments, but others come from real-life situations in companies, service organizations, or daily life.

This is a book all members of the 21st-century world community should become familiar with. It offers valuable insights into the things that hold us back and how we can push forward. Members of the Transylvania community can (and should) read it for free by borrowing it from our library.

I actually did not eat at this particular location but chose to have it delivered to campus, which is really convenient considering the weather lately. Their delivery service is very prompt; I was quite impressed with how soon my pizza arrived. And the fact that they will deliver until 3 a.m. is a real perk. Now let us get to the food.

When I eat pizza, one of the things that I look at first is the crust. An overly thick crust, for me, is honestly disgusting, unless the pizza is in Chicago style, in which case it is fine. Goodfellas has a really great thin crust. The bottom of it is perfectly crispy and then the actual crust part is chewy — which I love in a pizza.

Another thing that I love about their pizza is the sauce. Some places slather it on and it just becomes overwhelming and can make the crust soggy. Goodfellas puts the right amount of sauce on, enough that with every bite it makes an impact on the flavor profile, but not too much to where the sauce is all over your face.

The sauce is also very well seasoned and not too chunky. I am not a fan of chunky sauce; it is very out of place for a pizza. I want to get texture from the sauce, but I do not want to bite into a big chunk of tomato.

Finally, when I eat pizza I look at the toppings ratio, which is the amount of cheese in comparison to the amount of toppings. I do not want a pizza that has so much cheese that the crust gets weighed down by it, and the same idea goes with the amount of toppings. Pizza should not be weighed down by how much is on top of it, especially if you are prone to dropping food on your clothing, like I am.

Goodfellas has done a really nice job with this. There is enough cheese on it that you get the cheese stretch when you first take a bite, but the toppings do not weigh the pizza down enough to cause toppings like ham, pineapple and peppers to fall all over yourself and your plate.

I do not want to say that Goodfellas has the best pizza I have ever eaten because I have eaten pizza in Italy and nothing will ever compare to that. But I will say that if given the option between a chain restaurant and Goodfellas, I would, without a doubt, pick Goodfellas in a heartbeat.