Mirror - Vol. 29, No. 20 - March 04, 2004

              The
March 4, 2004 - Vol. 29, Iss. 20 Fairfield University's Student Newspaper
Fairfield's academic honesty policy criticized
BY STEVEN ANDREWS • ■
A recent report by a committee
of Fairfield professors suggested the
university seriously lags behind com-parable
schools in articulating and en-forcing
its academic honesty policy.
The report by the Subcommittee
on Academic Honesty, which was ob-tained
by The Mirror, was initiated by
the Undergraduate Curriculum Com-
Study: University does not place much emphasis on honor code EDITORIAL
Plagiarism
a problem
that needs
mittee to investigate Fairfield's honor
code, problems with plagiarism and
other related issues.
"Up until last fall, we were very
poor in regards to dealing with plagia-rism,"
said Dr. Ed Dew, chairman of
the politics department and a member
of the subcommittee that produced
the report. "Before this report virtu-ally
nothing was being done to combat
the problem."
The group investigated a dozen
other schools, from Fordham to Prince-ton,
to assess each school's honor code
and how Fairfield's efforts compared.
The report concluded Fairfield is at
best in the middle of the pack.
The report also notes that Fairfield
does not place much prominence on its
honor code or academic honesty policy.
No mention of the university's plagia-rism
policy was made in this year's stu-dent
handbook. In previous years, there
was some mention of the sanctions aris-ing
from academic dishonesty.
SEE "SNYDER" ON P. 4
attention
Page 15
Contributed photo
Helping hands: Fairfield students have joined Perlitz in his mission in Haiti over the years, including
Kristin Poplawski '04, top left, Marry Parr '04, in light blue, and Laura Sandanato '04, in white. The
rebellion currently taking place in Haiti has created dangerous conditions, but Perlitz has opted to remain.
Fairfield grad remains in Haiti
BY TARA LYNCH Volatile conditions not halting mission
Douglas Perlitz '92 doesn't
live the typical life of a Fairfield
communications graduate. Upon
graduating, he didn't pursue his
dream of becoming the voice of
his "beloved Denver Broncos"
- instead, he moved to a
developing country.
Every morning
Perlitz, Fairfield's com-mencement
speaker in
2002, helps the poor
children of Cap Haitian,
Haiti, by giving them a
safe place to bathe, learn
and play as part of Project
Pierre Toussaint.
Now, as Haiti becomes in-creasingly
dangerous with the
presence of United States Marines,
rebel forces and the absence of
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
PERLITZ
Perlitz has chosen to stay with
the children that have become his
life's work.
"It seems that every passing
day, Haiti falls farther and farther
into the darkness of the current
crisis: innocent people are
killed or lose their homes,
police stations are burned,
towns are taken over by
thugs and gas and food
become more scarce,"
Perlitz wrote in Project
Pierre Toussaint's Feb-ruary
newsletter. "I have
never seen so much vio-lence."
Perlitz first visited Haiti
in 1991 as part of a Mission
Volunteers trip with Fairfield
University. After graduating, he
returned to Haiti in 1996, learned
Creole, and with the help of a
grant from the Knights of Malta
established the Pierre Toussaint
School and Outreach Program
for street boys. Since then, his
program has grown with the help
of volunteers, allowing over 50
Haitian boys to live in the village
and even more the chance to visit
daily for a shower and hot meal.
"When he became involved
in campus ministry, it got into his
system that he definitely wanted to
go back," said Rev. Paul Carrier,
S.J., who visited Perlitz in January.
"There was something in Haiti that
he wanted to be part of from the
beginning."
The plight in Haiti is dire, ac-cording
to one professor.
SEE "PERLITZ" ON P. 6
Double jeopardy:>
Beach residents can face judicial action
for activities that take place off campus
BY ASHLEIGH EGAN
All Fairfield students seem
to know that by having a party
at their beach house they are run-ning
the risk of annoying their
neighbors and perhaps having to
deal with Fairfield Police.
But what many are not aware
of is that they are also running the
risk of facing disciplinary action
on campus as well.
The student handbook states
that "The University reserves the
right to take disciplinary action
for any behavior that violates the
law or University regulations, re-gardless
of whether the violation
occurred on or off campus."
Dean of Students Mark Reed
said, "The code of conduct has
always applied to students both
on and off campus... over the
past few years, however, stu-dent
behavior in the beach area
in particular became problematic
and the steps the university took
were prudent, necessary and have
been effective."
There are two general ways
that the university can obtain
information that a student has
violated university policy while
off campus. Duane Melzer, coor-dinator
of off-campus students,
said that usually either he is
present at the beach to witness
a violation or the university is
provided with a police report.
"Fairfield University works
with the Fairfield Police on a
multitude of issues, and there is
a constant dialogue going on back
and forth about students, the town
of Fairfield and communications
with security," said Melzer.
Melzer added that he is usu-ally
in the beach area Thursday,
Friday and Saturday nights from
10 p.m. until 3 a.m., but the uni-versity
does not officially rnoni-tor
any houses at the beach.
Reed stated that the univer-sity
may require a student who
is found guilty of multiple vio-lations
of the code of conduct to
meet regularly with the Office of
Judicial Affairs, or someone else,
for "status checks" and that the
university deals with behavior of
students that comes to its atten-tion
or is observable.
SEE "TOWN" ON P. 6
Carleigh Brower/The Mirror
A real beach: While students may be living off-campus in houses
at the beach, such as The Vatican, above, they can still be
punished by judicial.