Mirror - Vol. 30, No. 26 - April 21, 2005

              WEEK OF APRIL 21,2005
Vol. 30, Iss. 26 - 28 pages
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The independent student newspaper
of Fairfield University
Campus reacts to same-sex forum cancellation
BY GREGORY HILL
About 250 students, faculty and community
members gathered on April 14 at an open forum
sponsored by Alliance, in connection with the
departments of sociology and anthropology, to ad-dress
issues associated with the cancellation of the
same-sex marriage forum.
The original forum entitled "Marriage Equality
for Same-Sex Couples: An Educational Forum," was
abruptly cancelled after the administration learned
that members of the Connecticut General Assembly
were sent a letter of invitation to the event by the
external sponsor, Love Makes a Family, and decided
that Alliance, the student run organization, had lost
control of the event.
Kathryn Turcsany '05, vice president of Alli-ance,
said that she told administrators that the event
was not held to influence legislators and that she had
not lost control of the event.
"That could not be further from the truth, and
the entire situation exhibits an extreme lack of pro-fessionalism
and heavy handedness on the part of the
university," she said, "as well as a lack ofcommuni-cation
among members of the administration and a
disconnectedness with the needs of not only diverse
students, but those who wish to educate themselves
on current social issues on this campus."
On April 14, President Jeffrey von Arx ex-pressed
his concern of the forum in a campus-wide
e-mail saying that he made the decision with con-sultation
from senior administrators after learning
of the information.
"In cancelling the event," said Fr. von Arx in his
notice, "it was my hope that the faculty of Fairfield
would assist our students in putting together a forum
on the important public issues of domestic partner
SEE "STUDENTS" ON P. 2
COMMENTARY
SECTION
Editorial: Cancelling
forum a mistake
Cartoon: We're
white and straight?
Letter: English dept.
comments on forum
Pages 11-12
Chris Donate/ Mirror Photo Illustration
They can't tell us apart: The newest Princeton Review survey ranks Fairfield as the 5th most homogeneous student body in the
nation. The number of AHANA students in the class of 2008 is only half of those in the class of '05.
Survey says Fairfield lacks diverse student body
BY GREGORY HILL
The hiring of eight diverse professors
is a part of an administrative effort to make
the student and faculty body represent the
world population, according to campus
officials.
"I believe that having professors who
can help our students understand what
diversity has meant, and what diversity
might mean in the future is among the
most important tasks we can accomplish
to prepare students for citizenship and for
careers," said Orin Grossman, academic
vice president.
According to The Princeton Review,
the Fairfield University student body is the
fifth most homogenous in the nation. Last
year the university was ranked tenth in the
nation. Almost 90 percent of the student
body is considered to be white.
"Diversity is important to students'
overall educational experiences," said
Terry Ann Jones, who currently teaches at
the University of Miami and will join the
department of international studies next
fall. "However, if the student body is more
or less homogeneous, diversity should be
sought through the faculty, and courses
that are taught, as it can certainly enrich a
student's education."
Of the incoming freshmen this year,
7.9 percent of the 2008 class wereAHANA
students. When class of 2005 began, 14
percent of the class were AHANA stu-dents.
"Increasing diversity has been a
priority of my tenure at Fairfield and a
challenge that most institutions of higher
education are facing," said President Jef-frey
von Arx.
Compared to other similar Jesuit col-leges,
Fairfield falls short in the number of
AHANA students.
At Boston College, one out of every
four, or 25.1 percent of the student popula-tion
are AHANA students.
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"The world is diverse," said Mike
Davis '08. "If the school continues to be a
snow globe, its graduates are going to leave
here numb to the cultural differences that
exist and it will be rough transition." .
According to Dean Timothy Law Sny-der,
there are a number of ways to make a
more diverse Fairfield campus. One step
is educating the faculty and administration
on diversity. Snyder said that he person-ally
visited each department and colleges
on campus involved in a search.
"People tend to support the status
quo through a lack of proactive education
and engagement;" said Snyder, "through a
belief system that is based on myth and ru-mor,
rather than research and fact; through
a will to support improvements, but a lack
of will to make them; and, through classic
forms of discrimination - including, for
example, people tending to favor—and
hire—persons most like themselves."
SEE "SEARCH" ON P. 2
Housing: Fairfield
unlikely to adopt
GPA-based lottery
BY CAITLIN CALLAHAN
Winning the best housing lottery number
is a good feeling. But what if that D you got
last semester lowered the chance of getting a
good number?
Some-colleges and universities utilize
grade point average, extracurricular activities
and judicial records in distributing lottery
numbers.
Gary Stephenson, director of housing op-erations,
said that he has considered changing
Fairfield University's system to a GPA-based
housing lottery.
"If there is a way to put a value across all
disciplines that levels and quantifies the work
in one area of concentration over another,
then I think GPA could be one factor that
might be used in housing preference," said
Stephenson.
Stephenson said that if the system was
changed, he would like to incorporate extra-curricular
activities into the system as well.
But he adds that it would be almost impos-sible
to assign higher point values to certain
activities rather than others.
"Under the current standard, it [a hous-ing
lottery based on GPA and extracurricular
activities] would be a negative," said Ste-phenson.
Yet Marist's housing lottery is based on
priority points, and students are pleased with
the system.
Each returning Marist student earns up to
36 points based upon their GPA, extracurricu-lar
activities, room damage, room condition
and discipline record, according to Marist's
website.
Each student applies for housing in a
group and the group priority points are aver-aged.
The group is given a lottery number
based on this average and if a tie exists, the
group with the higher overall GPA gets the pri-ority.
Students' priority points are calculated
over a one-year span, so that each student is
able to start off the year with a clean slate.
Marist's system rewards students who
SEE "SEVERAL" ON P. 4
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