Mirror - Vol. 37, No. 15 - February 01, 2012

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Week of February 1,20121 vol. 37,iss7
THEWMIRROR
fairfieldmirrorxom
The Independent Student Newspaper
of Fairfield University
The Reflection of Fairfield
Residential Colleges Downsized
Only Two Years After Their Initial Creation, Two Residential College Programs of Claver Hall Suffer the Cut
Luigi DiMeglio/The Mirror
Claver Hall's Leadership in the Ignation Tradition and Environment
Residential Programs are no longer being offered for rising sophomores.
BY LUIGI DIMEGLIO
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The familiar sophomore
housing options of five living
and learning communities is
a thing of the past, as the two
residential colleges in Claver
Hall are being incorporated into
other communities only two
years after their start.
Rising sophomores can now
apply for both Village housing
options without submitting a
residential college application.
This is in addition to those vying
to live in Jogues Hall, which has
never been an official living and
learning community.
The decision to eliminate
the only residential colleges
in The Village housing area
was reached after a process
of collecting feedback from a
variety of people involved such
as residents, FUSA, IRHA and
RCC representatives, professors,
faculty chairpersons, mentors
and staff, according to an email
from Associate Dean of Students
and Director of Student Devel-opment,
Dr. Joseph DeFeo.
Several serious issues have
stood in the way of another year
for the Leadership in the Igna-tian
Tradition and the Environ-ment
residential colleges, which
were described by DeFeo in an
email sent to members of the
residential college committee
during winter break.
These challenges involved the
quantity offaculty, courses and
mentors needed to maintain a com-plete
program. According to Defeo,
they were problems that could not
be fixed in the short term.
With 90 mentors staffing the
residential college program as a
whole this year, the available po-sitions
in residence halls outside
Claver will be in high demand
next semester. For Christopher
Johnson, a mentor who is com-pleting
his first year with the En-vironmental
Residential College,
continuing with the program is
simply a matter of hope.
Leading up to the decision
to cut Claver Hall residential
colleges, mentors and other
staff may have overlooked some
obstacles including financial
concerns and student apathy.
True to the administration's
promise of limited impact on
student life from the budget defi-cit,
"financial concerns were not
even brought up when we made
the decision," said DeFeo. He
added, "Human resources and
spatial resources were the major
concerns. Financial ones were a
piece that were not in focus."
Lack of student involve-ment
was not an issue found on
the committee's list, though it is
what Claver Hall resident Chris
DelVeccio '14 considers the big-gest
obstacle.
"The whole idea [of residen-tial
colleges] has great intentions
but no one is interested. People
just want to live in Claver," said
DelVeccio. "The environment
in Claver is more interested in
partying and having fun so the
program doesn't work here."
Still, DeFeo did note that
residents in Claver were sub-
CLAVERI PA§i 3
Is This the End of
University College?
BY RICHARD O'CONNOR
STAFF WRITER
"I honestly have no idea what
University College is," said Michael
Durand '12. Most students reading
this article are more than likely
sharing the same thought.
Right now, a plan is under
review by the Academic Counsel
to close the school, a move which
can be seen as prudent given the
current budget crisis. But what is
University College exactly?
Although UC is one of Fairfield
University's six schools, its purpose
differs greatly from its siblings.
Located in Dolan House, the uni-versity
website characterizes UC as
"a gateway for the part-time student
and lifelong learner to all of Fair-field's
undergraduate course offer-ings."
Aside from housing students,
UC also offers a Bachelor's Degree
of Professional Studies (BPS). Those
who have had classes with non-traditional
students, or lifetime
learners, have rubbed elbows with
some of UC's constituents.
Another function of UC is
the ability of someone to start out
part-time. If the student proved
his or herself academically over
the course of a few semesters, they
would be allowed to transfer into
one of the undergraduate schools
and matriculate as a full-time
student. In other words, a student
could begin to take classes at UC,
and graduate with a degree, with-out
ever going through Fairfield's
admissions process.
Most of the school's responsi-bilities
have been deemed redun-dant
since students could receive
the same services and academic
counseling from Fairfield's other
undergraduate schools.
If UC is shutdown, current
students will experience no great
change, aside from being absorbed
into their respective school, com-pleting
their courses of study, and
receiving advising, as they would
have otherwise. If this scenario
unfolds, the College of Arts and
Sciences is debating whether or not
they will continue to offer the BPS.
In the future, part-time stu-dents
would apply directly to their
school of choice and receive advis-ing
directly from the faculty of that
school, thus integrating part-time
and non-traditional students more
fully into the rest of the undergrad-uate
population.
Dr. Aaron Perkus, the Associ-ate
Dean of UC, offered insight into
why the administration is consider-ing
the closure. Although redun-dancy
topped the list, Perkus also
cited "having a separate University
College obstructed the mission to
integrate'non-traditional'students
within the larger Fairfield commu-nity"
and" a decline in enrollment
of students who met the initial
CLOSING | PAii 5
Maggie Andrew/The Mirror
The Men's SoccerTeam performed the final routine, surprising audiences with a choreographed striptease.
Student Athletes ShowTheir Skills
BY MAGGIE ANDREW
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
We knew they could run and
throw a ball, but who knew student
athletes also have moves?
The crowd at Alumni Hall found
out just how talented Fairfield's own
student athletes are last Saturday
night, when the sports teams gathered
for the Second Annual Student
Athlete Talent Show. The creative,
entertaining and even provocative
acts benefitted a good cause, with the
proceeds going to offset the cost of
treatment for Emily Tredwell, a young
girl born with a disease that causes
one leg to be shorter than the other.
A donation of $2 at the door
helped the teams reach their goal of
raising $2,000 forTredwell's treat-ment,
a considerable sum since she
began to see a specialist in Florida.
Raffle tickets were also given out, with
prizes such as tickets to a taping of
Good Morning America, seats at Har-bor
Yard Arena, merchandise from the
bookstore and other apparel.
The athletes were most eager for
a different kind of prize: a coveted get-out-
of-jail-free pass with the athlete's
strength and conditioning trainer,
Mark Spellman, who also served as a
judge for the Talent Show. After an in-tense
bidding war, the volleyball team
won the time off at the price of $200.
The athletes could argue they are
all deserving of some time off, though,
after the hours of brainstorming and
practice that went into their perfor-mances.
Fr. Doody, the director of
Campus Ministry, and Chris Huntley,
an NCAA representative, joined Spell-man
in judging the talented teams.
Lucas the Stag started off the
night by dancing to a medley of songs,
the first of many choreographed
numbers combining current music
with past classics.
Men's Baseball was the first team
to perform, dancing to their own ren-dition
of a ladies'workout, complete
with colorful spandex and the enthu-siasm
of Richard Simmons.
The Field Hockey team was argu-ably
the most creative performance of
the night, acting out the classic video
game Super Mario. One player sat
with an oversized controller while an-other
acted as Mario, jumping to col-lect
the coins and kicking the turtles
that were carried by girls dressed in
black in front of a dark sheet.
The sounds and props convinc-ingly
depicted the gaming experience,
which ended with the defeat of a
green-vested "Bowser," Mario jump-ing
to the top of the pole and finally
carrying away Princess Peach.
TALENT SHOW I PA§i 3