Mirror - Vol. 29, No. 01 - June 01, 2003

              ORIENTATION ISSUE
The
State budget crisis puts financial aid at risk
Despite massive state bud-get
deficits that forced
hundreds of thousands of
dollars to be cut out of financial
aid budgets of private universities
throughout Connecticut, Fairfield
University has minimized the
losses from the cuts but is still vul-nerable
as the state legislature en-ters
special session to pass a bud-get
by the end of June.
As reported in The Mirror on
Feb. 20, 2003 (available online at
www.fairfieldmirror.com), state
budget deficits amounting to about
$2 billion over the next two years
resulted in a 15 percent cut to the
Connecticut Independent Colleges
Students, or CICS (pronounced
"kicks") grant program. Fairfield's
share of the shortfall was just un-der
$300,000, but the university re-couped
money for the program by
redirecting resources to financial
aid after cutting the football and ice
hockey programs earlier this year.
Susan Kadir, director of the
Financial Aid program, was cau-tiously
optimistic about the current
budget deliberations in Hartford.
"The Appropriations Com-mittee
has recommended to the
legislature that they do level fund-
BY ETHAN FRY
ing for CICS," said Kadir. If such
funding is approved, said Kadir,
CICS money will be distributed
based on the number of Connecti-cut
residents who attend each
school on a full-time basis.
Based on current budget de-liberations,
Kadir said that
Fairfield still stands to lose
$100,000 in funding, and that
number could go up to $400,000
if more cuts are made.
Judy Greiman, president of
the Connecticut Conference of In-dependent
Colleges, was also op-timistic.
"While you never know what
will happen until the negotiations
are all over and the budget is finally
signed by the governor, I think that
our message has gotten through and
that many of our supporters in the
legislature have been asking that
our cut be minimized," Greiman
said. "We will keep working over
the next few weeks to make sure
that we hold onto the money."
Greiman also noted that the
budget passed by the democrat-led
legislature and subsequently ve-toed
by Gov. John G. Rowland "in-cluded
an additional $3 million in
CICS funding than had been in the
governor's original budget."
"If the governor had signed
this budget," Greiman said, "the
program would only have sus-tained
an $800,000 cut rather than
the originally proposed $3.8 mil-lion
cut. Because of the veto, there
will need to be a special session to
complete the budget work."
Asked if students or parents
could do anything to help mini-mize
the budget cuts, Greiman
said, "Letters to legislators con-tinue
to be helpful. Students and
their parents can go to our Web site
to send letters to the six key lead-ers
and the state budget chief en-couraging
them to keep our money
in the next budget."
The Web site is http://
capwiz.com/theccic/issues/alert/
?alertid=2010546&type=CU
Overall, Kadir said the finan-cial
aid staff is doing everything
they can to minimize the effect of
the budget cuts, but it is an uphill
battle.
"We're never funded enough
to give grants to all students dem-onstrating
need," said Kadir. "Un-fortunately,
this year the funds
went quickly."
Student ID continues to become more useful on campus
BY KEITH WHAMOND
From buying sushi at the Stag diner to
getting into a dorm building right before the
11 p.m. cut off, the Stag Card is one of the
most vital of all the accessories used by a
Fairfield University student.
Soon, Fairfield will add one more func-tion
to the already long list of Stag Card
uses: printing papers at the library.
Starting this fall, the University plans
on having students use their Stag Card
whenever they print a document from the
Nyselius Library, and eventually from the
many computer labs on campus.
The plan is to install a "printer man-agement
system" to control the amount pa-per
used by each student for printing docu-ments.
A card reader will be installed on all
the printers in the library, which will require
every student to swipe their card each time
they print a document from one of the li-brary
computers. Budget permitting, the
card readers will also be installed in each of
the computer labs on campus by the fall.
Mirror file photo
Being carded: Dining dollars can be used in places like the Stag for food purchases.
"Currently, it's a work in progress," said
Michael Tortora, the coordinator of Informa-tion
Systems for Student Services. "Students
will print their paper from the computer,
swipe their card, and the paper will print."
Students will have an as-yet undeter-mined
set number of printouts per semes-ter.
After the student has gone over that limit,
the student will be charged a "nominal" fee
to their Stag Bucks credit, according to
Tortora.
The Stag Card has taken on a number
of different roles over the recent past, with
its functions growing more and more seem-ingly
each semester.
Three years ago, the Stag card was lim-ited
to building access and food at the caf-eterias
and snack bars.
Now the card is usable at vending ma-chines,
and money has been split into two
categories: Dining Dollars, which is for food
at the establishments on campus, and Stag
Bucks, which can be used for spending in
the bookstore.
In addition, Fairfield will inaugurate the
vending of newspapers for the Stag Card
next semester. Newspaper machines will be
set up in Jogues and Loyola halls, allowing
students to swipe their cards in order to re-ceive
a complementary newspaper. Some of
the newspapers available in the offer include
The New York Times and the Connecticut
Post.