Mirror - Vol. 05, No. 10 - October 29, 1981

              "The Image
of
Fairfield"
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Fairfield, Conn.
Volume 5, No. 10, October 29,1981 Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut 06430 Incorporated 1977
Ambassador Donlan
Irish Problems Solved
Through Political Forces
by Delia J. Smith
Sean Donlan spoke on the topic
of "Ireland Today" before his last
audience, a near capacity Oak
Room, as Irish Ambassador on
October 21. Introduced by Father
Kelley as "the model of the
modern Irish Ambassador,"
Donlan was scheduled to return to
Dublin to accept the position of
Secretary of the Department of
Foreign Affairs on Monday.
In his lecture, Donlan repeated-ly
emphasized the similarities bet-ween
Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland and the at-tempts
to secure a lasting peace
between the two. He noted that
the economy of the Republic of
Ireland is growing at twice the rate
of most other Common Market
Countries and that the return on
investments in the Republic of
Ireland is 29%. Thus, "Once pros-perous
Northern Ireland now
looks to a more vibrant and
healthier economy in the
Republic. To a significant extent it
is now possible to say that both
parts of Ireland enjoy roughly the
same standards of living...So at
least one of the barriers between
the two parts of Ireland - the bar-rier
of economic disparity - has
begun to disappear."
However, economic disparity is
not the only barrier dividing
Ireland. In the seventeenth cen-tury,
Britain began to colonize
Northern Ireland. Since it was
post-reformation, the British who
dispossessed the Catholics were
Protestants. Thus, "religion
became a badge of difference."
Donlan stated, "Historians may
argue that the problem in Northern
Ireland in its origin is merely col-onial.
The present government in
Dublin - an Irish government - does
not approach the issue in that
way," Donlan quoted. The Irish
minister for foreign affairs who
stated, "Nor do we see it as a mat-ter
of disputed territory or a claim
of some kind by the government
and people of the South on Nor-thern
Ireland. The single central
issue for all of us in Ireland today
is peace. Not peace in the sense
as merely an end to violence
-although that of course is vital
-but peace in the wider sense of
reconciliation and of a healing of
the division between the two Irish
traditions."
One thing preventing this recon-ciliation
is terrorism; terrorism
which is largely supported by
citizens of the United States who
contribute money, guns, and
political and psychological sup-port
to terrorist organizations.
Donlan continues, "to plead
with people in this country not to
support violence in Ireland. We
have a problem, but we believe we
can solve our problem by the use
of political forces - not by the use
of violence." With the exception
of about 2%, the Irish "utterly
repudiate violence.
The Irish have five major steps
towards achieving peace. These
steps are to repudiate violence,
disregard the claim to legitimacy
of those involved in violence, open
new constructions between' the
North and the South, promote
good will between the North and
the South, and to promote the
close links between Ireland and
Britain.
In his recent Oakroom lecture, Irish Ambassador Sean Donlan spoke of
the attempts to secure lasting peace between the warring factions in the
Republic of Ireland. (Photo by Kevin Kumke)
Pub Obtains Wine
Honors Program Hosts William Styron
by Carl S. Gustafson
William Styron, one of the
foremost writers in America today,
instilled the bold philosophy that
stands behind writing that has
been termed "provocative," to a
capacity crowd in the Nursing
Auditorium.
William Styron was the first
sponsored lecture of the new
Senior Honors Program. His line
of novels began in 1951 with Lie
Down in Darkness; a novel study-ing
the internal decay of a Virgi-nian
family. The story culminates
for Styron in the "ultimate vic-timization"-
a suicide; in a society
wrought with technology, and im-potent
from the decline of relig-ion.
Admittedly containing naive
characters, the early writer's philo-sophy
included quotes from clas-sical
literature simply "to lend an
aura of learnedness."
The Confessions of Nat Turner
was one of Styron's more con-troversial
works; grounding a
story of black slavery in a first per-son
narrative which was at least
physically foreign to him. Stryon
"never had any intellectual pro-blems
with (his) right to write that
book." Although the book was
"largely a projection of my im-agination,"
Stryon was aided by
the friendship of James Baldwin.
Styron's writing security began
to involve a confidence in his
character's natural actions. He
believes that his characters,
although imbued with his own
sympathetic humanity, will tell the
story.
After two short novella's The
Long March and Set This House
on Fire, Stryon struck mass
market gold with Sophie's Choice.
His "new vision" made a subject
which Stryon felt overwhelming-readable.
It was the difference bet-ween
pornography and literature.
His art "found the metaphor for
that whole horrible part of
history," in a young non-Jewish
victim of the holocaust.
Styron's advice to the young
writer was "unless you do have a
central core to arrange things
around, sort of like a magnet to at-track
the filings (of the story line)
in hulks, you loose your book. You
must beat your characters into
their actions."
Styron's compulsion with the
theme of human suppression, and
his emphasis on character
dominated the lecture. The pro-gram
entitled "Crisis and Creativi-ty"
found in Styron the sympathy
of thought that was necessary for
his unique vision of character and
expression.
by Tom Callahan
Fairfield's Stag-Her Inn has
received the first beer and wine
permit issued by the State of
Connecticut to a university. Wine
was instituted on Monday and will
become a regular feature at the
pub.
Taylor California chablis and
rose will be the wines served at
the Stag-Her. They will be sold in a
six-ounce glass for $.75 and in a
one liter carafe for $5.00.
Graduate assistant Tom Fair
told the MIRROR that wine "adds
another dimension to the Stag-Her
and allows us to diversify our pro-gramming."
The Stag-Her is looking to esta-blish
wine and cheese parties with
entertainment provided by a
pianist or guitarist, game nights
featuring backgammon and chess
and club nights where campus
organizations would be able to
have dinner in the Stag-Her along
with wine and beer.
According to Mr. Fair, it is
hoped that wine will help bring a
different crowd of people into the
Stag-Her. "We may be able to at-tract
the crowd from Oak Rooms
both before and after lectures and
also on Sunday when people
would be more subdued."
The license marks the end of a
long process under gone in order
to serve both beer and wine. Stag-
Her Inn permittee and manager
Stan Kapinos pointed out that the
wine bill passed by the legislature
went into effect on July 1. Then it
was up to individual colleges to
submit on application to the State.
Mr. Kapinos felt the fact that
Fairfield was the first recipient of
a beer and wine permit had little to
do with the length of the process.
"It just took a long time. I believe
they are doing the same thing with
everyone."
The Stag-Her now becomes the
first university pub in the state to
secure a beer and wine permit
after it became only the 2nd cam-pus
bar in Connecticut to open its
doors in 1974.
Faculty, Students United
in Teacher Evaluations
Could this be another glass of warm milk?! Warm milk was one of many
comments registered by students in a recent MIRROR poll. See story
and poll results on page 2. (Photo by Craig Carlstrom)
by Mary Kay Wysocki
Brian Gilbert FUSA Academic
Vice-President and Kathy O'Brien,
FUSA Vice-President of Opera-tions,
received approval, at the
October 13 general faculty
meeting, for their proposal to ad-minister
the student course
evaluation concurrently with the
faculty's personal course evalua-tions.
In addition to the administrative
changes, Gilbert and O'Brien
spent last week getting student in-put
concerning the questions to
be on the evaluation. "We will read
all the questions submitted and
pick the most frequent ideas,"
stated Gilbert. The student evalua-tion
exists to assist the students
in choosing courses and pro-fessors
to suit their needs.
O'Brien and Gilbert are con-sidering
a change from the 1-5
scale to a 1-4 scale. They explain-ed,
"The 1-5 scale leaves too much
gray area for mediocrity in evalua-tions."
The 1-4 scale allows for a
clearer distinction between pro-fessors
teaching the same course.
Publication is tenatively set for
late February so that the evalua-tions
can be used in registering
for the 1982-83 academic year.
There is a lot of faculty support
and assistance according to
Gilbert and O'Brien. "The big dif-ference
with this one (evaluation)
is that we are working with the
faculty. In the past, evaluations
were distributed without con-sulting
the faculty and were not
relative to the material of their
class," explained Gilbert.
Dr. Arthur Anderson, chairman
of the Sociology department, is a
long-standing proponent of stu-dent
evaluations. "In my thirteen
years here I have always strongly
supported this concept. Students
are in a consumer role in an in-stitution.
They have the right to
evaluate under normal consumer
interests."
A considerable number of pro-fessors
object to student evalua-tions.
Dr. Anderson attributes a
portion of this to Fairfield's recent
history of evaluations. Two, in the
past few years, never materialized,
which made them a waste of class
time to some faculty members.
Aspects of other evaluations were
poorly handled, becoming a
disservice to both the professor
and the course. The new pro-cedures
make the evaluation more
administratively effective and
thorough, therefore reaching the
students and eliminating the
faculty's skepticism.
Dr. Anderson believes that
many of the faculty's objections
are based on the premise that
students are not capable of
evaluating a professor's com-petency.
Students, for example,
can not judge if a professor has
kept up with his field. Dr. Ander-son
stressed, "A student evalua-tion,
and can only be done by
students. The question of profess-ional
competency is irrelevant.
Students can, however, evaluate
how well a professor is doing the
job for them."