Mirror - Vol. 04, No. 13 - November 13, 1980

              Committees Delay Revised Class Schedule
by Ken Vaughn
The Academic Council and Un-dergraduate
Curriculum Commit-tee
have asked that the new revis-ed
class schedule be delayed in its
implementation. In its place, an al-ternate
proposal preserving the
present teaching rotations was
unanimously ratified, according to
Academic Vice-President Chris-topher
Mooney, S.J.
Both administrative committees
agreed that a degree of flexibility
in the schedule was needed, but
they opposed making the entire
change -rn one year. The commit-tee
members expressed concern
that the proposed 75-minute
classes may not be in great de-mand
by both professors and stu-dents,
thus creating a lot of un-used
classroom space. Instead,
they proposed that the 75-minute
class concept be gradually encom-passed
into the teaching codes.
The proposal to be implemented
starting in the fall of 1981 calls for
the retention of the 11 existing
teaching codes plus the addition
of six 75-minute codes. The new
class codes will be variations of
classes offered during first, fourth
and seventh periods. In addition to
the code 1 01 01, a 1 01 00 will be
added, with classes starting at
8:20 a.m. and lasting for 75 min-utes.
The other new codes will be
01 01 0 (in addition to 21 01 0), 4 0
4 0 0A (with 4 0 4 0 4A), 0 4 0 4 0A
(with 5 4 0 4 0A), 7 0 7 0 0 and 0 7 0
7 0 (with 7 0 7 7 0).
Mooney said it will be up to the
professors to now express an in-terest
in teaching the 75-minute
rotations. Should there be a big
demand to teach in the new rota-tions,
there may be a problem in
arranging who will get the class-room
space. It will be up to the
academic department chairmen to
work with the Registrar to insure
proper scheduling, said Mooney.
This compromise will allow pro-fessors
and students interested in
utilizing 75-minute periods to do
so in a limited manner next year.
Mooney said that if the new class
times prove to be successful, then
a reconsideration of the new class
schedule would be discussed.
The new schedule that was de-layed
called for 75-minute classes
to be taught on Tuesdays and
Thursdays and on a limited basis
on Monday, Wednesday and Fri-day.
The regular 50-minute classes
would have also been taught on
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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FAIRFIELD ^J FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY, FAIRFIELD, CONN. 06430 IMIREOR \^^^^ Incorporated 1977
United Way Goal Passed;
Collection Exceeds $14,000
by Kathy Noonan
For the fourth year in a row,
Fairfield University exceeded their
United Way fund-raising goal. The
university community raised a
total of $14,340.80, far surpassing
the initial goal of $13,000.00.
Fr. John Higgins S.J., the cam-pus
campaign co-ordinator, was
very pleased with the result. Hig-gins
stated that, "At the start of
the campaign I was optimistic, but
a bit apprehensive. The support I
received from the students and 25
area co-cordinators was incredi-ble.
Again, Fairfield University is
the leader of all the centers of
higher education in this area."
The effort and dedication of
those involved allowed Fairfield to
increase its pledge by $2,725.96
over last year. Contributions this
year were made by the following
people:
Administration $2,640.20
Clerical, Secretaries &
Telephone Operators $981.12
Faculty $2760.00
Food Service $4,590.24
Jesuit Community $700.00
Maintenance &
Housekeeping $746.14
Fairfield Prep $268.48
Students $1,619.50
Special recognition should be
given to the Food Services, who
raised 148 percent of their goal.
The students raised $919.50 more
than last year in their effort. Lynne
Desmond served as the overall
student co-ordinator, with Brian
Bellows, Dae Magrino and Jean
Luglio assisting. The main fund-raiser
was the Halloween Dance.
Campion III was awarded an extra
special dinner for being the floor
that raised the most money.
Bill Nutt, portraying psychopath Harold Kennedy, strangles Lee
Smeriglio, who plays a secret service agent, in the upcoming
Commuter club movie "Quicksilver." [Photo by Robert Neal]
Media Course Incorporates PresidentiaTEIection
This semester Dr. Cathleen Min-ardi
has offered a course through
the newly formed communica-tions
minor that explores the im-pact
of media on politics. Through
a course titled "Special Topics in
Communication," Dr. Minardi has
offered Media and the President
Campaign.
Although the emphasis has
been on the current presidential
campaign, the course has examin-ed,
in an historical context, the in-fluence
the media has had on
changes in the political process.
Using a topical approach, such
areas as the primaries, conven-tions,
polls, issues, commercials,
image and style, news coverage
and criticism, the media advan-tages
of an incumbent president,
and the election results have been
analyzed in a media context.
Because a course of this nature
has no standard outline and text,
Dr. Minardi prepared for the
course by the collecting material
beginning last November as the
media geared up for the coming
campaign. According to Dr. Minar-di,
"Contrary to popular criticism,
the networks do an outstanding
job in presenting information
about the campaign, not only
through their nightly news cover-age
but through many regularly
scheduled 'specials'. The amount
of information to which the net-works
have access and their abili-ty
to present it both in an infor-mative
and entertaining fashion
have contributed enormously to
what the public knows about the
campaign, the candidates and the
political process."
Dr. Minardi felt that it was ex-tremely
important to use actual
media examples when introducing
the various topics. "It is certainly
less effective to discuss the im-pact
of a visual image by verbal
description. Therefore, I spent
much of the past year videotaping
significant campaign events and
gathering information and crit-icism
from the print media. One
day each week, I was able to il-
Six Journey To U.S. Capitol
by Mary Kay Wysocki
While most of us are psyching
ourselves to return to the daily mo-notony
of textbooks and tests, a
select group of junior politics ma-jors
will trade in those same text-books
for the real world of Wash-ington
politics. At present Maura
Fitzpatrick, Kevin Fusco, Kathy
O'Connor, Carl Secola, Steve
Walsh and Larry Altiere make up
the entourage setting up residen-cy
in Washington for the Spring
1980 semester.
The Washington Semester Pro-gram
allows Students the oppor-tunity,
through an internship, for a
practical education in government
during either their second semes-ter
of junior year or the first se-mester
of senior year.
Students apply through the pol-itics
department. After applying,
students research the type of in-ternship
in which they are inter-ested
and prepare a research
statement.
The politics department reviews
each applicant based on four cri-teria.
The first point is intellectual
abilitv as seen in the student's
grade point average and written
work. Then through an autobio-graphical
statement and interview,
the student's desire to participate
is determined. Finally, the depart-ment
evaluates the program's
benefit to the student relative to
the very independent nature of the
program. This final point is meas-ured
by the amount of work and
time spent researching and pre-paring
the type of internship de-sired,
nature of extracurricular ac-tivities
in which the student is in-volved,
his autobiographical state-ment
and the personal interview.
The Washington Semester Pro-gram
is open to all politics majors.
Applications are taken the se-mester
prior to the one spent in
Washington. Other years there
have been approximately twice the
number of applicants as there are
internships available. However,
this year there were six applicants
for six positions. Dr. Kevin Cas-sidy,
co-coordinator of the Wash-ington
Semester Program with Dr.
John Orman, feels that the option
of interning either second semes-ter
junior year or first semester
senior year was the reason for the
drop in applicants for the Spring
Semester 1980.
Once a student decides to in-tern
in Washington there are two
programs available. The Americ&n
University sponsored program
sets aside two days a week for the
internship and three days for
classes. The courses studied re-late
to Washington politics and
usually feature guest speakers
from the political arena. The pro-gram
run through the Washington
Center for Learning Alternatives
(WCLA) allows four and a half days
for the internship and one seminar
which meets once a week. The
seminar is related to the indi-vidual's
internship. A research
paper is integral to both programs.
Participating students receive fif-teen
credits for the time spent and
work done in Washington.
American University provides
dorms and a meal plan for stu-dents
while WCLA provides an
apartment where students cook
for themselves. Both the dorms
and apartment houses are used
exclusively for students involved
in the Washington Internship pro-gram.
Dr. Cassidy points out that
this gives students an opportunity
to interact with people from all
over the country who are in-terested
in Washington and the
world of politics.
The Washington Semester pro-gram
has numerous advantages.
Dr. Cassidy indicates that "the
Washington Internship gives stu-
Continued on Page 3
lustrate the specific ways in which
the media cover, interpret or in-fluence
events. The two days were
used to lecture and initiate stu-dent
discussion," informed Minar-di.
She continued, "I think that this
class clearly illustrates that the
media have by-passed the old tra-ditional
political party system
whereby an aspiring candidate
would work his way up through
the party by impressing and gain-ing
the support of the political
"bosses." The power of the
"bosses" has been eliminated and
replaced by media consultants
and strategists.
Dr. Minardi also believes that
both the candidates and the media
can be criticized for emphasizing
image and style over a definitive
discussion of the issues. The me-dia
in particular has given solid at-tention
to the issues this past
year, although the candidates still
prefer to make broad, generalized
statements rather than attend to
specifics.
She stated that the campaign
has been particularly interesting
from a media perspective since
Carter successfully manipulated
the media to win the election in
1976. She added that Reagan is
also a skilled, highly-trained media
communicator by previous profes-sion.
The communications minor is
open to all students regardless of
major, and all communication
courses are available on an elec-tive
basis. Students do not have to
minor in communications in order
to take advantage of one or more
of the courses. This spring se-mester,
courses in writing, radio
and sound techniques, broadcast
criticism, and human communica-tion
are being offered.
Students who are interested
either in the communications
minor or course descriptions can
contact either Dr. Minardi in the
English Department or consult the
course descriptions in the univer-sity
catalogue under the English
Department heading.
BYOB For Sadie
by Ken Vaughn
The University Council voted to
recommend that this year's Sadie
Hawkins Dance be run as a BYOB
function, thus overturning their
decision of last May.
According to Council member
Mike Bentivegna, the recom-mendation
was made with the
agreement that next semester's
Snowball Dance would be a cash
bar affair. Last May, the Council
had agreed to allow this
semester's Sadie dance to be a
cash bar dance. However, opposi-tion
surfaced last Wednesday
from Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED),
the biology society that runs the
social. John Nevins of AED told
the Council that no previous al-cohol
problems had occurred at
BYOB dances.
However, Campus Center Direc-tor
James Fitzpatrick objected to
the reinstating of BYOB status be-cause
he felt the university could
not exercise sufficient control.
However, Fitzpatrick agreed with
the recommendation after it was
stated that the cash bar approach
would be tried at the winter for-mal.
Bentivegna said that he wanted
to see the BYOB status returned
to Sadie Hawkins to see how the
approach would work. With the
Harvest Dance cancelled earlier
this semester, the November
dance would be the first of the
year. Last year, Bentivegna had
said that a cash bar would create
long lines that encroach the dance
floor and would be a risk to the
sponsors who^are buying the al-cohol.
Since -fhis would be a new
approach, it woutd be hard to
gauge how much alcohol should
be bought.