Mirror - Vol. 28, No. 22 - March 27, 2003

              March 27, 2003 - Vol. 28, lss. 22 fairfield University's Student Nevvspapei
Global emotions high over Iraq conflict
Courtesy of Chris Huff
Protests continue: Junior Chris Huff sent in this picture of a protest, including members of Sinn Fein, that took place in Galway, Ireland.
Students abroad surprised
by open-minded debate
t Organizer of anti-war petition
told to "go live in Iraq"
BY CHRIS ZEITZ
Placards and polls paint Eu-rope
as hostile to the war in Iraq,
but for some Fairfield students that
are studying abroad, the impres-sion
they most often find among
individual Europeans is an open
mind and willingness for debate.
"I have to explain my opin-ion
about the war almost everyday,
because a lot of the Spanish people
are really passionate about the sub-ject,"
said Julian Saavedra, '04,
currently studying in Spain.
"They are very apt to listen
first, and make a judgment later,"
Saavedra said.
Polls show that the people of
Spain are in opposition to the war,
despite the fact that the country
was a staunch ally of America in
the diplomatic campaign-for the
war.
"Most people I have encoun-tered
are eager to talk
about the war in a ratio-nal
manner. All the
Spaniards I have met are
against the war," said
Gerry Abbey, '04, also
studying in Spain.
To the north and
past the English Chan-nel,
the situation is simi-lar
for Chris Huff,'04.
"The one thing I
have to give the over-whelming
majority of
Irish people credit for is
having an open mind.
No matter what your stance is on
SEE "STUDY" ON P. 4
BY CHRIS ZEITZ
■I R A
COMMENTARY
Students speak out
about Iraqi conflict
Page 16
The debate over the war in
Iraq is alive and well
within the boundaries of
Fairfield University.
Philosophy Profes-sor
Dr. Curt Naser so-licited
for a petition
against the war via
email last week and re-ceived
dissenting opin-ions
in thirteen replies
from members of the
university staff.
Criticism of the pe-tition
ranged from the
expression of support
for the president and the
armed forces to more condescend-ing
remarks calling the petition
organizers' opinions "worthless"
or erroneous.
Two e-mails suggested that
the people responsible for the pe-tition
should leave America.
"People like you should go
live in Iraq," one e-mail expressed.
"AMERICA - LOVE IT OR
LEAVE IT!!!," was the message
in another email.
The text of the replies was
provided to The Mirror by Naser
with the exclusion of the names of
the staff who sent the responses.
Of the 13 e-mails sent to Pro-fessor
Naser, seven e-mails made
some mention or allusion to terror-ism
as a reason for war with Iraq.
Some of these e-mails specifically
referred to Sept. 11 as justification
for the war.
SEE "SOME" ON P. 5
First football, now
budget crunch
claims merit pay
BY ETHAN FRY
& MIKE PIGNATARO
For nearly two years, faculty
and administrators wrangled, quar-reled
and debated over the divisive
issue of merit pay. Now, all that
debate seems to be for nothing.
Merit pay, scheduled to be
implemented this year with or
without full faculty participation,
was delayed by administrators due
to budget shortfalls that also re-sulted
in the disbandment of the
football and hockey teams.
Earlier in the year, faculty
members were asked to prepare a
self-evaluation by mid-February
detailing their academic activities
in order to be considered for a
merit raise. Under the previous
system of faculty compensation, a
group of faculty members called
the Faculty Salary Committee
would negotiate a uniform pay in-crease
with members of the admin-istration
which kept Fairfield's fac-ulty
compensation in the 95th per-centile
of comparable schools.
Under the new merit system,
faculty would be given different
amounts of raises based on activi-ties
such as having articles pub-lished
in academic journals and
presenting at academic confer-ences.
Due to the budget crunch,
however, merit pay has been de-layed
for implementation this year,
and according to faculty members,
university employees will only re-ceive
an across-the-board $500
pay increase.
Faculty members reacted to
this news with anger.
"What are these people think-ing?"
said Dr. Donald Greenberg,
a politics professor and chair of the
Faculty Salary Committee. 'They
should've known these budget
considerations were coming along.
SEE "FACULTY" ON P. 6
Lackluster crowd grills Fr. Kelley on war, athletic cuts
BY ZACK FINLEY
On March 19, students had the oppor-tunity
to do what most will never have the
opportunity to do while here at Fairfield:
have a conversation with Aloysius P. Kelley,
S.J., president of our school.
However, few students took advantage
of asking Kelley and Dean of Students Mark
Reed what they had on their mind. A slim
crowd of about 40 students were in atten
dance on the first floor of the Campus Cen
ter.
The first question of the night
asked Kelley about his typical day
while here at Fairfield. "It varies
from day to day," Kelley said. "I
deal with a lot of mail and email,
EDITORIAL
Who is this guy?
Page 15
It did not take too long, however, until
someone brought up the inevitable topic of
the disbandment of the football
and hockey teams. "I knew some-one
was going to ask me about
that," Kelley said jokingly.
The question asked specifi-cally
about Fairfield's capital
deal with things in the office but I actually campaign and if any of that money could
spend a lot of time off campus." be used to fund the lost programs. "The capi-tal
campaign expenditures go to endowment,
financial aid and for things on campus,"
Kelley said. "It does not go to funding things
like the football team."
According to Kelley, the budget com-mittee
gets together each year to come up
with a list of resources and what the needs
of those resources are. The budget is then
SEE "FR. KELLEY" ON P. 4