Mirror - Vol. 30, No. 27 - April 28, 2005

              WEEK OF APRIL 28,2005
Vol. 30, Iss. 27 - 32 pages
FREE - Take One
MThe ^^ 1 WOR WWW.FAIRFIELDMIRROR.COM
The independent student newspaper
of Fairfield University
TUITION TUR
' BY BILL MCBAIN
Just months after being named one of "America's 77 Best Value
Colleges" by the Princeton Review Fairfield's Board of Trustees
approved a 5.7 percent tuition increase -to bring the price of a
Fairfield education to $39,330. k
"I just can't believe that I'll be spending $160,000 for my time Jj
here," said Rob McDonnell '08, "I am learning a lot, but I'm go-ing
to be in debt for years to come."
In the past the tuition hikes were introduced most heavily for freshmen and on a
graduated scale with the least increase going to seniors. Vice-President of Finance Wil-liam
Lucas, explained that this was because the younger students would be getting :
more use out of the expansions put into place from the tuition increases.
The university puts a larger increase for freshmen, sophomores and juniors.
The reasoning behind this raise is that younger students will get more use out of
capital improvements. Last year the junior and senior rates were raised $500
less than the freshmen and sophomore rates, but this year it was only seniors
that got the break.
"I thought that $36,000 was high, but it would be that for the rest of
my time here," said Maura Heenan '07, "Thank God I'm going abroad for
half of the year."
In a letter to parents, Father Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., university presi
dent, said that budgeting has been one of his top priorities.
"I appreciate the sacrifices which many have made to provide
their children with a Fairfield University education," wrote von
Arx.
SEE "TUITION" ON P. 6 A
MIRROR SNAPSHOT Fairfield has seen tuition rise close
STRETCHING A BUCK *>*m*^*>n^.
$29,730
$12,350
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Take a seat please
BY BRYAN C. MAHONEY
Student attendence at athletic events still
poor four years after move to Arena
Four years after moving out
of Alumni Hall, the Fairfield bas-ketball
teams are still unsuccessful
at filling even half the seats at the
Arena at Harbor Yard.
Since packing up and heading
to Bridgeport in 2001, the Stags
have struggled to rouse support for
the teams from the student body
and greater community. Although
the arena is capable of holding
nearly 10,000 people, four times
that of Alumni Hall, the average
attendance for men's games has
been no more than 2,900.
Eugene Doris, Fairfield Uni-versity's
athletic director, admits
the transition has been difficult
but has stood firmly behind his
decision, believing the move was
necessary.
"It has not been an overnight
success," said Doris. "But we had
to look at the fan-base. It was the
same people coming back for over
30 years. The ability to grow at
Alumni just wasn't there."
When the decision was origi-nally
made to move the basketball
teams to an off-campus venue,
Doris said it was modeled after a
/lirror tile photo
Dead sea: Despite efforts to increase student interest in athletic events, attendence has failed to increase significantly.
similar move made by Metro At-lantic
Athletic Conference member
Siena College, which upgraded
from playing on campus at its
4,000 capacity-seating Alumni
Recreation Center to the Pepsi
Arena (14,750 capacity) in 1997.
At that time, Siena was having
great success with its move, in-creasing
attendance by nearly 40
percent.
"We made an increase almost
immediately," John D'Argenio,
Siena's athletic director told The
Mirror. "We felt that we had good
fan support at the time and felt that
there was a good indication that
when the team moved we would
continue to have good support."
Student support at the time
of Fairfield's move however, ap-peared
to be considerably weaker.
Even when playing at Alumni
Hall, students complained of
"sports apathy" and a general lack
of interest in athletic teams.
"Athletics just wasn't some-thing
students were into at all
really," said James Naldi '03. "It
was much easier to go to the games
when they were played on campus,
but it just seemed like no one re-ally
cared."
While Doris considered the
Siena statistics to have been a use-ful
reference point, he also points
out that the information is "all rela-tive,"
as Siena's venues are much
larger than that of Fairfield's.
He also said that Siena's on-campus
arena, which remains the
home of its women's basketball
team, is "as good of an on-campus
arena that a mid-major is going
to get" and that Alumni Hall's
poor condition played a dominant
factor in the eventual shift of the
teams.
SEE "DORIS" ON P. 4