Mirror - Vol. 29, No. 13 - December 04, 2003

              IN A NEW YORK MINUTE
Get out of Fairfield! Here's
some hot spots in the city.
Page 10
WORLD AIDS DAY
An editorial and commentary
look at the problems ahead
Page 12
The
Fairfield University's Student Newsp
New season has begun, but questions remain
BY STEVEN ANDREWS
Despite the Fairfield men's
basketball team's impressive start
to the 2003-2004 season, there
remains unfinished business from
last year.
The allegation of numerous im-proprieties
committed by some staff
members in violation of National
Collegiate Athletic Association
rules is still under investigation and
will continue into the regular season
with no ruling in sight.
Martha Milcarek, the assistant
vice president for Public Relations
at Fairfield, recently held a meeting
with Mirror reporters and editors
to clarify and update the situation
for them.
The university hired the firm of
Bond, Schoeneck & King in August
to investigate the claims made by
former players, led by Oscar Gar-cia'
03. Lead investigator Attorney
Stephen Morgan, who has served
on the NCAA staff for more than
20 years, declined telling the Con-necticut
Post whether his current
probe has concluded.
Morgan and his team are ex-amining
whether claims made by
Garcia, as well as other players,
to the Post that head coach Tim
O'Toole ignored the NCAA's "20-
hour rule" which limits time spent
on athletics by players each week, as
well as members of his staff helping
to falsify drug tests, write papers,
and give unauthorized monetary
handouts to athletes.
Although University President
Aloysius P. Kelley, S. J. will not
comment on the case to the media,
he has released a statement through
the Public Relations department.
SEE "SEVERITY" ON P. 6
NCAA INVESTIGATION
Aelee Kwon/The Mirror
Study session: Crew team member Maura O'Connor '04 and soccer player Danny Atwell '05 complete some school work in the Walsh
Athletic Center study room.
Athlete privileges at Fairfield are largely a myth
BY HEATHER MANNING
It's the day of your big test,
you've studied hard, and you
can't help but notice that the stu-dent
athlete that sits next to you
isn't present for the test. They
have a game. Does the student
athlete have privileges that regu-lar
students don't?
Although athletes are
amongst a select group of students
that pre-register for their core and
elective classes earlier than most
of the student body, this seems to
be the end of their privileges.
Jennifer Chapla '05, a mem-ber
of the women's soccer team,
said athletic privileges are "Just
pre-registration. I don't think that
it's too powerful. We don't even
get to park in the athletic center
lot without getting tickets!"
If a student has to miss a class
because of a conflict with a sport-ing
event, they follow a release
time policy. At a determined
time, the athlete is excused from
any classes they have so they can
leave for games or meets. The
absence is counted as an excused
absence, but it is up to the ath-letes
to make up any work that
is missed.
For example, Deng Gai '05,
a member of the men's basketball
team, said, "I have a game tomor-row,
but I have a test, so I have to
make it up the next day."
MaryAnn Pallazzi, the coor-dinator
of programs for student
athletes, said there are no extra
privileges associated with being
a student athlete besides pre-reg-istration.
Pre-registration allows
athletes to work their classes
around their practice schedules.
Christine Mayer '05, a mem-ber
of the diving team, said that
beside pre-registration the only
privilege she received was "com-ing
to Fairfield as a freshman and
automatically having a set group
of people to hang out with."
SEE "ATHLETES" ON P. 6
New library
addition plans
being revised
BY TARA LYNCH
Plans to add a new wing to the
library that would provide a place to
experiment with technology are be-ing
revised after government grants
failed to bring in enough money to
produce the new hi-tech addition.
The original plan, which was
first proposed in 1998, called for
a $5.2 million, 14,000 foot, two
story addition on the south side of
the library between the existing
library and the Quick Center.
The extension was to house the
university's developing Informa-tion
Technology Center, said Vice
President for Information Systems
and University Librarian James Es-trada.
However, government grants
totaling only $2.1 million between
2000 and 2003 are forcing officials
to revisit the initial blueprint.
"The idea was to create a fa-cility
where faculty could go and
test out new technology and see
how they can incorporate it into the
classroom," said Estrada, adding
that the new hi-tech rooms would
include the newest computers,
software and project equipment.
"Consistent with its mission
of service to others, the ITC was
designed to function as a tech-nology
training resource for the
university and our regional com-munities,"
said Estrada, explaining
the aim of the ITC.
SEE "FUNDING" ON P. 4