Mirror - Vol. 35, No. 10 - November 11, 2009

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Week of Nov. 11, 2009 | Vol. 35, iS8.10
■ fairfieldmirror.com ■
The Independent Student Newspaper
of Fairfield University
The Reflection of Fairfield
Harassment Complaints Threaten Future of The Mirror
. Peter Caty/The Mirror
Following up on the Coffee Break controversy, the administration and The Mirror met this Week
to discuss the fate of The Mirror as an independent paper on Fairfield's campus.
BY MEAGAN FLYNN
STAFF WRITER
What started as an impromptu protest
has evolved into a tug of war between'Univer-sity
policy and freedom of expression.
Although Mirror editors feel they were
not in violation of their contract with the
University, Dean of Students Tom Pellegrino
requested in a meeting on Monday that The
Mirror appear before a student conduct board
to evaluate if the organization was in violation
of the University harassment policy.
The meeting addressed claims from four
students — Bradley Fay, Shawne Lomauro, Jen
Martin and Kenni Nwajagu — that they were
personally harassed by The Mirror's printing
of offensive language in the Oct. 1 "He Said"
column.
The meeting was attended by Dean Pel-legrino,
The Mirror faculty adviser Prof. Fran
Silverman, and members of the editorial staff,
including Tom Geary, Lily Norton, Chris Sim-mons,
Keith Connors and Chris Haliskoe,
all seniors. The problem is that the harass-ment
policy is not included in the funding
agreement mutually agreed upon by The
Mirror and Pellegrino's office. While some
feel that the student newspaper should be
held to the University's student standard,
editors and advisers of The Mirror claim
that subjecting an independent organiza-tion
to any judicial or disciplinary action
impedes on their ability to produce a
student-run, non-biased publication.
"We take pride in being an'indepen-dent
news organization, that's part of the
campus community, and we feel that we
need to remain independent to create an
unbiased paper for students and to truly
learn from the experiences we have, like
this one," Cleary stated in the meeting.
In The Mirror's opinion, remaining
independent would entail exceptions to
policies in the student handbook to ap-propriately
recognize the paper's position
as an external, independent company con-tracted
by the University. They claim that
including an independent organization under
individual student policy fails to recognize The
Mirfor's independence, as the publication is
listed as an independent organization in the
student handbook.
Pellegrino first suggested mediation be-tween
the students who filed the harassment
claims and The Mirror.
"Mediation was declined [by the students
who filed claims]," Pellegrino said.
"Under our harassment policy, a com-plaint
gets filed and comes to my office, and
the policy is prescriptive as to what I need to
do with those complaints... That doesn't speak
to the issue of whether I think it's appropriate
or not appropriate to set up an advisory board.
As I read
INSIDE | PAGE 7
The Mirror Responds:
Read the letter to Dean
Pellegrino and the changes
in the Code of Procedure.
the policy,
I don't
have the
discretion
to send
it some-where
else. And unless the students withdraw those
complaints, they have a right to have those
complaints processed in a timely fashion,"
Pellegrino added.
One of Pellegrino's suggestions to help
remedy the situation is the creation of a
advisory board for The Mirror. The advisory
board would be composed of students,
faculty, staff, and even lawyers concerned
with freedom of expression issues, to name
a few. Pellegrino envisions that the advisory
board would review every issue, and insists
that the board would in no way be in favor of
prior censorship.
While The Mirror feels its advisement
under Prof. Silverman (and previously under
Dr. James Simon) has been sufficient, they are
willing to add an advisory board if it is diverse,
unbiased, approved by the editors, and un-able
to remove editors or writers from their
positions, according to a letter from Cleary to
Pellegrino in response to his requests to re-'
evaluate advisement structure!
THE MIRROR I PAGE 4
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The University's fifth
consecutive "Up Till
Dawn" event was
held Monday night, in
which students were
invited to write letters
with the hope of rasing
money for the St. Jude's
Children's Hospital and
Research Center.
According to Stephanie
Stadig, who is one of
the coordinators of the
"Up Till Dawn" com-mittee,
they received
approximately 1,800
letters from participat-ing
Fairfield students.
The committee has
leftover letters if any
students could not
make the event and
wanted to participate.
Melissa Mann/The Mirror
Fairfield Grad to Run for Governor
STAFF REPORT
Connecticut Lieutenant Governor Michael Fedele
'80 announced on Monday that he will be running for the
position of Connecticut Governor in the 2010 election.
His declaration came on the heels of current Gover-nor
M. Jodi Rell announcing that she will be retiring after
her current term. According to an article in the Connecticut
Post, Fedele expected Monday to receive Rell's support in
his campaign. However, Rell has publicly said she will wait
before deciding what Republican candidate to support.
In regards to Rell's decision not to run again, Fedele
said in the Post article, "This is something that we've all
been expecting."
"The governor has shared that with me. I'm proud to
have served these four years, coming up with her. We still
have a lot ofwork to do, and I look forward to completing
this term with her."
Fedele founded an IT company following his gradua-tion
from Fairfield and was added to Rell's ticket in 2006.
Vaccine Here, not for Long
BY MIKAELA TIERNEY
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
The first supply of H1N1
vaccines arrived in the Health
Center last week, but with very
strict distribution guidelines
making the vaccines unavail-able
to the majority of students
and faculty.
Despite the three cases of
swine flu and the 60 cases of
flu-like symptoms reported so
far, Fairfield is being very selec-tive
in its distribution of the vac-cine.
As outlined in a University
message sent to all students
and faculty, the
Health Center
will be issuing
vaccines only to
individuals with
serious medical
conditions.
"Students
and faculty and
staff members
who do not
have underlying
health conditions
are NOT eligible to be vacci-nated
with this initial limited
supply," the message outlined.
Some of the qualifying health
conditions include asthma,
diabetes, blood disorders, and
weakened immune systems.
The limited availability of
vaccines became even more
frustrating for many students
when they heard about other
universities making the vaccine
more widely available.
Last week, Loyola Uni-versity
in New Orleans held a
series of clinics that offered free
H1N1 vaccines to all students.
Fordham University is holding
clinics this week offering both
H1N1 and season flu vaccines
to its students as well.
Yet Fairfield, which "was ap-proved
to receive and distribute
H1N1 vaccine to members of
the University community who
VACCINES ! PAOE4
INDEX
Opinion • Page 9
Features • Page 11
Arts & Entertainment • Page 13
Sports • Page 24
I THIS WEEK
No Late Night Runs to
Barone.
See page 5.
Honing in oh Health
Care
See page 3.
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