Mirror - Vol. 28, No. 17 - February 13, 2003

              MADE OF D'OH ABANDON SHIP?
After 300 episodes, The Mirror
offers a look at the best shows
Pages 10-11
Many football and hockey players
are planning to transfer
Page 20
The
February 13, 2003 - Vol.
A year later,
hostage situation
still on minds
of many
BY LAURA WALSH
One year ag6 Wednesday, 24-
year-old Fairfield alumnus Patrick
Arbelo, carrying a cardboard box
with exposed wires, suddenly
walked into Dr. Elizabeth Dreyer's
religious studies class in Canisius
Hall claiming he had a bomb.
Today, Fairfield students have
not forgotten, nor have they com-pletely
recovered from that trau-matic
day.
"I think I'm
still dealing with
it," said Nora
Lopez, '03, one
of the student
hostages. "Just
lately, I've been
thinking about it
more often be-cause
this was
the time around
when it happened. It's weird. It still
feels like it didn't really happen."
Elissa DeRose, '04, another
student who was held hostage by
Arbelo, agreed.
"It's just the type of thing that
won't go away," said DeRose.
"Today, for instance, someone was
standing outside my class and I got
nervous."
Although no one was harmed
and the bomb was deemed not dan-gerous
by a bomb squad, 27 stu-dents
and Dr. Dreyer were held
hostage for six hours on Tuesday,
Feb. 12, 2002. Arbelo, who is
SEE "EX-HOSTAGE" ON P. 4
Fairfield University's Student Newspaper
Fallout continues from sports cancellations
Keith Whamond/The Mirror
Mass response: A protest took place last Thursday outside Bellarmine Hall after the cancellation of the football and hockey programs.
ARBELO
Players left out of decision;
school to use money for aid
Students and faculty against
sudden disbandment of teams
BY MIKE PIGNATARO
It's being called a "dark day"
for Fairfield athletics, and for 85
student-athletes and 10 coaches the
effects of last Thursday's an-nouncement
to cut the football and
hockey programs will be felt for
years to come.
"The university doesn't know
what they just did to 21 kids
[hockey players]. None of us [un-derclassmen
members] will be
back," said Ryan Murphy '06, a
member of the hockey team that
plans to transfer after this year.
"They basically gave us three
weeks to find somewhere else to
go. Every day is one less day that
we're going to spend with each
other."
Days later, punter Jeff I BY ZACK FlNLEY
Gomulinski, '05, remained®
speechless. Tim Fater, '05, has no connec-
"There are no words to de- « tion to the recent disbandment of
scribe how I feel right
now. But I just have to
move on and make a de-cision,"
said
Gomulinski, who plans
to transfer after this se-mester.
An even more dis-paraging
factor of the
university's decision,
according to the players,
was the lack of commu-nication
the administra-tion
had with both pro-grams
prior to the decision.
THE PIG PEN
The school dropped
the ball on how they
handled the situation
Page 18
ALUMNI SAY
Ex-athletes angered
by end of programs
\ Page 18
SEE "DORIS" ON P. 18
the football and hockey
programs, except for the
fact that he feels for the
individuals and teams
involved. However,
Fater took his feelings
and turned them into ac-tion
last Thursday after
hearing about the deci-sion
given by university
President Aloysius P.
Kelley, S.J.
At about 4:00 p.m.,
Fater decided to get
some of his friends together to
show that they truly cared about
Fairfield. "I talked to some people
who thought it was a good idea,"
said Fater. "So then I made some
calls, sent out some Instant Mes-sages
and this is what came of it."
Located on the lawn of
Bellarmine Hall roughly 80 stu-dents
gathered in a mini-protest
outside the office of Fr. Kelley last
Thursday. There, students voiced
their opinions while proving to
each other that they did want a say
in what occurred. Those who did
not know about the protest were
drawn in by the sound of fireworks
in the distance.
"It is not so much in the fact
of what happened," said Fater, "but
in the way the school went about
* the athletic programs here at SEE "PROTEST" ON P. 6
22.6%
Poor
The IRROR
SNAPSHOT
Students divided
over advising
Students were asked:
"What is your opinion
of the quality
of academic advising?"
Here is how
they responded:
Source: Classes of James Simon and Kurt Schlichting
Margin of error: +/- 5 percent
4.4%
No Opinion 18.5%
Good
35.4%
Good
Graphic by Joshua O'Connell/The Minor
Poll: quality of faculty advising a mixed bag
BY KEITH WHAMOND
Imagine that you find yourself
having suffered through registra-tion
for another semester, only to
find that you signed up for Ad-vanced
Trigonometry thinking that
it would be an easy way to fill up
a core math requirement. The rea-son?
You didn't have the benefit
of a faculty advisor helping you
along the way.
If something like this has hap-pened
to you, you're not alone.
According to a new poll of
Fairfield students, almost half -
42% - ranked their faculty advis-ing
as only fair or poor. Only 20%
rated it as very good, with 37%
calling their advising good.
The low scores didn't surprise
Fairfield administration.
"I'm not happy with these
numbers," said Orin Grossman,
the academic vice president of
Fairfield. "Faculty advising and
mentoring is obviously an impor-tant
feature of academic life here,
and some students perceive that
their experience with this advising
is not positive," he said.
SEE "SENIORS" ON P. 4