Mirror - Vol. 33, No. 14 - December 13, 2007

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WEEK OF DECEMBER 13,2007
Vol. 34, Iss. 14 - 20 pages
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The independent student newspaper
of Fan-field University
Public Safety
raids empty
townhouse
BY ANDREW CHAPIN
Saturday, Sept. 22, 12:07 a.m.
A narcotics violation occurred at the
townhouses. The Fairfield Police De-partment
was called.
While this would appear to be just
another snippet of the week's Crime
Beat, these 13 words do not begin to
tell the story, which could adversely
affect on-campus students.
Early that Saturday morning Pub-lic
Safety officers entered townhouse
115, where they would find 21 articles
in violation of University policy, in-cluding
multiple pieces of drug para-phernalia.
But what the Crime Beat blurb
doesn't reveal is that not one person
was home at the time of the search,
leaving open the question of why Pub-lic
Safety entered in the first place.
The issue was recently resolved,
after over two months of deliberation.
One student was suspended for the
upcoming spring semester, another
forced to live off campus and the other
five reassigned to Claver.
With regard to searches, the 2007-
SEE "PELAZZA" ON P. 6
Areal 'Class Act'
Jack McNamara/ The Mirror
Playing with poetry: Theatre Fairfield continues its 17-year tradition with 'A Class Act,' which includes poetry readings and performances
written and performed by Fairfield students. For the review, see "Theater and poetry unite" on p.10.
Senators reject FUSA president's
nominee for secretary of communications
BY CHRISTOPHER HALISKOE
Darryl Brackeen Jr. '10 — FUSA Presi-dent
Hutch Williams '08's nominee for the
Senate's secretary of communica-tions
— was refused confirmation
last week for the position.
In the weekly Sunday eve-ning
FUSA Senate meeting, the
Senate voted 15-12 against Brac-keen,
with five abstentions.
The Senate used its executive
privilege to close the vote to the
public.
According to Senate Chair
Tim Rich '08, the discussion in-volved
FUSA personnel matters. The votes
BRACKEEN
were kept anonymous.
Brackeen, who is the current diversity
director for IRHA, was presented to the
Senate by Brittany Fusillo' 11, to replace the
position left vacant by Kara Ackerman '08,
who resigned.
Since Rich was on the six-member
review committee along
with Ackerman, Vice Chair Ashley
Close '08 presided over the meet-ing.
The committee consisted of the
two Senate members, two judicial
branch members and two execu-tive
members, one of whom was
Williams.
"I believe the Senate felt that
Darryl didn't have enough experience," said
Williams.
When nominating Brackeen, Williams
said he was "looking for someone to motive
the Web site [and] we felt that Darryl had
those qualities."
Williams said that Brackeen was fitting
for the position because of his personable
demeanor.
Brackeen said he was surprised by the
vote because he felt that he was "qualified,
if not over qualified."
"Back home I was the assistant director
of communications for my church, and I feel
I would have been a good fit here because of
my relations to different groups," he said.
Brackeen said the nomination process
was fair but that he should have been able to
represent himself in the Senate meeting.
Tutor shortage at Writing Center
BY MICHELLE MORRISON
Seven tutors and one Writing Center
for 3,941 students.
This semester, the Fairfield Writing Cen-ter
faces rising numbers of students in need.
At the same time, the Writing Center staff has
dropped from 11 tutors to only seven.
"We're just feeling the pressure of hav-ing
all of our slots filled," said Alexandra
Gross '09, a tutor since the fall of her sopho-more
year and current assistant managing
editor of The Mirror.
Beth Boquet, former director of the
Writing Center and co-author of "The Ev-eryday
Writing Center" went on sabbatical
during spring 2007 and did not teach ENW
290: Writing and Responding, the class
that normally preps students to become tu-tors.
This, combined with one current tutor
studying abroad, left the Writing Center in
need of tutors.
Meanwhile, student use of the Writing
Center continues to climb. The number of
appointments made during the 2006-2007
school year — 1,532 — increased by 33 per-cent
since the 2003-2004 academic year.
Boquet, who has overseen the writing
center since 1994, said she did not foresee a
staffing problem when she left on sabbatical.
"I wasn't that concerned," she said.
"We've had that many in the past."
While on sabbatical, Boquet learned
of an opening in the College of Arts and
Sciences for the position of assistant dean.
Before applying for the job, she consulted
Betsy Bowen, English professor and current
acting director and former interim director
of the Writing Center, to see if she would
fill in at the Writing Center.
SEE "TUTORS" ON P. 5
Ex-CEO,
alum rebuilds
image
BY CHRISTINA STODDARD
Joseph Berardino '72 sees parallels
between leadership and classic Greek
tragedies. "There are incredible calami-ties,"
he said recently in an interview
with The Mirror, "but the focus is not that
there was trouble, but what you did with
it, where you went from there."
Berardino is still remembered in
business circles for one major calamity:
He was CEO of Anderson Worldwide,
one of the "Big 5" accounting firms, at
the time when one of its biggest clients,
Enron, collapsed in 2002 in what was
one of the largest bankruptcy scandals
in U.S. history, leaving many people
unemployed.
"I was the CEO of the company, and
when we got in trouble 1 was the voice
of our firm," said Berardino, who tried
mightily to explain the situation to both
the media and Congress. "In a crisis, the
only thing you can do is lead with your
values; you can't cover up or spin it."
After graduating from Fairfield
in 1972 with a degree in accounting,
Berardino joined Arthur Andersen. He
stayed active in the University commu-nity,
becoming a member of the Board
of Trustees in 1992. Meanwhile, he also
moved up the ranks at Andersen, making
SEE "BERARDINO" ON P. 4
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