Mirror - Vol. 05, No. 09 - October 22, 1981

              "The Image
of
Fairfield"
FAIRFIELD W \\ [MlRROR1 I Nonprofit Organization
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Permit No. 34
Fairfield, Conn.
Volume 5, No. 9, October 22,1981 Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut 06430 Incorporated 1977
Board Approves Townhouses
by Kathy O'Connor
The Fairfield Town Plan and Zon-ing
Commission has granted the
University a permit to build town-houses
with a condition that the
proposed construction plans be
modified. Plans to construct a new
entrance to campus must be elim-inated.
The entrance would have
been off North Benson Road near
the northeastern section of cam-pus
where townhouses will be lo-cated.
At the October 16th executive
meeting, the commission ex-pressed
concern that the town-house
complex remain part of the
University campus. Members felt
an entrance to townhouses from
North Benson would not only sep-arate
the complex from the rest of
the campus, but would also cause
traffic problems on North Benson
Rd.
These same views were voiced
three weeks ago during the
90-minute hearing regarding the 2.7
million dollar townhouse construc-tion
plan.
The September 29th hearing had
focused on two issues: the pos-sible
conversion of townhouses in-to
condominiums and the prob-lems
that a new entrance to cam-pus
might cause. Attorney John
Fallon responded to these con-cerns.
He explained why it was
"not only unlikely, but impossible"
for townhouses to be converted to
condominiums. Commission mem-bers
who were uneasy with the
construction of 'apartment-like'
structures seemed to have been re-assured
by Fallon's comments.
During the hearing, Fallon also
responded to questions about
building a new entrance. Commis-sion
members felt this would cause
an increase in traffic on North Ben-son
Road. Referring to a study
done on the effect townhouses will
have on traffic, Fallon pointed out,
"traffic should decrease because
there will be 200 less students driv-ing
to campus from the beach each
day." In addition, Fallon predicted
a northeastern entrance might
eliminate the congestion at the
main gate. It was also brought to
the commission's attention that
constructing the entrance was im-portant
for the safety of the
students.
However, judging from the con-cerns
expressed during last week's
executive meeting, Fallon's argu-ments
on this issue didn't satisfy
commission members.
According to the commission's
wishes, access to the townhouses
will be via the main campus.
Secretary of Labor Raymond J. Donovan urges cooperation between man-agement
and labor before the Symposium on American Capitalism last
Thursday afternoon. University president Aloysius P. Kelley and Dean of
the School of Business John T. Griffin welcomed Donovan and members
of the business community to the conference held in the Oak Room.
[Photo by Patty Lanza]
Capitalism Highlighted
Communication Breakdown Piagues
Academic Credit Issue
by Patrick Reap
and Mary-Margaret Walsh
"Everyone assumed that the
pathway was open when the Uni-versity
Council recommended it. I
assumed that the proper channels
would be taken care of," stated
F.LhSrA. president Michael Benti-vegna.
Although two academic years
have passed, "No formal action
has been taken since University
Council recommended it."
Bentivegna's comments reflect
the cloud of confusion concerning
his proposal favoring academic
credit for certain University activit-ies.
The University Council, in a
March 13, 1980 meeting, unani-mously
recommended to the
Deans of the Undergraduate Col-leges
Bentivegna's "concept" to
give academic credit for those stu-dents
involved in top leadership
positions in campus organiza-tions.
According to Campus Center
Director, James D. Fitzpatrick, a
member of the University Council
when the recommendation was
approved, "the minutes of the
meeting were distributed to the
Academic Vice-President and
Deans of the Undergraduate Col-leges.
However, there was no ex-planatory
cover letter attached to
the minutes," which apparently
prompted further inaction.
"As soon as the University
Council acted upon the minutes of
the meeting, the concept of aca-demic
credit just died. Nobody
pushed it after that," Fitzpatrick
said.
The major problem, which has
caused this idea to dwell in limbo
for the past 18 months, remains
that a concrete proposal was
never brought to an authoritative
body.
Dean of Arts and Sciences,"
Stephen L. Weber stated, "If we're
talking about something like intern-ship
and those kinds of safe
guards, you won't have any pro-blem
with me and I don't expect
that you will have any problems
with my colleagues."
Phyllis Porter, Dean of Nursing
and a member of the University
Council when the recommenda-tion
was passed, had no know-ledge
of where this proposal went,
explaining, "I don't have the faint-est
idea where they (U. Council
proposals) would go."
Asked if she would approve of a
proposal structured similar to the
internship program, Dean Porter
stated, "I want to see it. I approve
of it in concept, there is a big dif-ference
between concept and real- wm
ity."
John Griffin, Dean of the Busi-ness
School, was less enthusias-tic
about the issue, stating that he
has yet to see a campus leader-ship
position which would merit
credit from the Business School.
"The individual schools have to
make the judgement. I would
rather emphasize the internship
program that brings students into
corporate world off-campus.
According to Dr. John Barone,
who was Academic Vice-President
at the time of the University Coun-cil
recommendation, the chrono-logy
of events are as follows: Mike
Bentivegna took the proposal to
him who in turn presented it to the
three undergraduate Deans.
"The three deans refused to
givf> credit for it," stated Dr.
Barone. Asked if he supported the
idea, Dr. Barone stated, "Yes, but
it is not up to me."
According to the minutes of a
Dean's Council meeting of Febru-ary
6, 1980, Michael Bentivegna's
proposal favoring credit for key
student government positions
were discussed. The following
conclusion evolved: "The Deans
expressed serious reservations.
No action is necessary at this time
and unless a concrete proposal is
forthcoming."
Fr. Christopher Mooney, S.J.,
the current Academic Vice-Presi-dent,
also voiced concern about
the pigeonholing of this concept.
"There should be a formal propos-al
taken to me with the request
that I bring it to the Deans, which I
by Tom Callahan
Fairfield University hosted the
5th annual Symposium on Ameri-can
Capitalism last Thursday
which featured Secretary of Labor
Raymond J. Donovan who called
for "stable economic expansion"
throughout the 1980's.
Mr. Donovan was the main at-traction
in the symposium spon-sored
by Wright Investors Service
of Bridgeport. Other speakers
were John Winthrop Wright, Chair-man
and President of Wright In-vestors
Service and Albert T. Som-mers,
Senior Vice President and
Chief Economist of The Confer-ence
Board.
Secretary Donovan in his pre-pared
remarks stressed, "If there
is to be any reform of the Amer-ican
economic system during the
coming decade, it will have to is-sue
from a substantial increase in
the rate of productivity growth."
Growth can only be achieved
through "management and labor
working together and working to-gether
more closely than they
have ever worked before," accord-ing
to Donovan.
He continued, "Yesterday it was
convenient for labor and manage-ment
to settle their differences
through confrontation...But those
days are gone for good. Govern-ment
can't do it (solve their differ-ences).
But labor and manage-ment—
working together—can do
it."
In addition, the Labor Secretary
warned, "The management) that
fails to cultivate the willingness of
its work force by treating its em-ployees
as fellow producers, as
full-fledged partners in the pro-ductive
process, is not going to
survive the 1980's intact."
After the symposium John
Wright, an earlier speaker and
sponsor of the event, told the MIR-ROR,
"I thought (Donovan's
speech) was all right as far as it
went. He is a disciplined member
of the organization, of the admin-istration,
as he should be...l don't
think he could really do much
more."
In his speech, Mr. Wright as-sailed
the high interest rate policy
of the Federal Reserve Board that
are "exacerbating" inflation. He
also states that the FRB should
order banks not to honor foreign
capital. He feels that "unrestricted
foreign expansion of the world
supply of dollars" has been a ma-jor
cause of today's inflation.
The other speaker, Albert Som-mers,
agreed that government
must encourage private invest-ment.
He cautioned that our eco-nomic
problems are "not solvable
in one election."
Fr. Kelley stressed the import-ance
of the symposium in his wel-come.
"As a private institution
Fairfield has a particular stake in
the financial future of the
country." He praised the gather-ing
as a "highlight of the academ-ic
calendar" and as a meeting of
the corporate supporters of Fair-field
County and also Fairfield Uni-versity.
Lecture Studies Shroud of Turin
by Jennifer Gorham
Skeptics, scientists, theolog-ians
and those just curious about
the Shroud of Turin, filled the Oak
Room to capacity on Tuesday, Oc-tober
13 to hear Dr. Joseph DeSal-vo
present historical, biological,
chemical and physical evidence
substantiating the belief that the
image of Christ is on the shroud.
Pablo Cruise will kick off Harvest Weekend with a concert this Friday night in the Fairfield gymnasium. The band
will highlight the weekend activities which will include a dance to take place in the Oak Room and cafeteria.
Dr. DeSalvo pointed out, "prob-ably
no relic in history has tieen
studied with such scrutiny." The
first recorded exposition of the
shroud was in 1357. Up to that
date, no physical record of Christ
was known to man. The shroud
was on display in France until
1532 when fire broke out in the
church where it was being dis-played,
leaving marks which still
remain on the cloth. From there, it
was taken to the Cathedral of John
the Baptist in Italy, where it is to-day.
The body image on the shroud is
that of a man approximately 5 '10"
and .170 lbs., but this figure varies.
It is a frontal and dorsal view as
though the body had been wrapped.
Conclusive evidence has shown
that the shroud is in fact, the im-age
of a body and not a forgery.
Such evidence is the anatomical
positioning of the body, the pres-ence
of real blood and the fact
that the image is only a "surface
phenomena" and could not be pro-duced
by paint.
Dr. DeSalvo discussed several
theories which try to explain the
cause of the image but as he
pointed out, no theory has been
totally conclusive. The first theory
was that the image was produced
by radiation, which may have em-inated
from the body. This hypo-thesis
was ruled out on the basis
of the nature of the image, differ-ent
from that produced by radia-tion.
Another theory discussed, was
that the image was produced by
direct contact of the body with the
cloth. Perspiration and oils from
the body would produce such an
image. The "Voltinger theory"
holds that the image on the
shroud is much like the image pro-duced
by a leaf when pressed in a
book. Neither of these theories
show absolute conclusive evi-dence
that the shroud is the cloth
that covered Jesus.
As DeSalvo pointed out, the
final evidence which would indi-cate
that the shroud dates back to
the time of Christ would be the
Carbon 14 test. Scientists are still
awaiting permission.
What was answered was that on
the shroud, there is an image of a
man who could be Christ. DeSalvo
summed up his lecture by com-menting
"No one will be able to
definitely say this was the cloth
that covered Christ...this is a mat-ter
left up to faith."