Mirror - Vol. 38, No. 03 - September 26, 2012

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Week of September 26,2012 • Vol. 38, Iss 3 • The Reflection ofFairfield • Independent Student Newspaper of Fairfield University
Policies updated to reflect a Fairfield lifestyle
BY MARTIN O'SULLIVAN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
On Sept. 6, an email from the
Dean of Students Karen Donoghue
informed students of updates on
University Policy. Though you
may not check your student hand-book
regularly, several important
changes to University policy have
been introduced in the 2012-13
school year.
Changes apply to "sexual mis-conduct,
class attendance, and
damage policies," according to the
email. In addition to the email,
faculty forums were held on Sept.
12 and 19 in Alumni House con-cerning
the class attendance and
sexual misconduct policies, re-spectively.
Sexual Harassment
Vice President of Student Af-fairs
Thomas Pellegrino, who led
the faculty discussion on Septem-ber
19, explained the exact changes
in university policy to The Mirror.
"Many colleges and universi-ties
responding to what happened
at Perm State took a look at what
their policies said about those
things," Pellegrino said. "So, we
took a look at that and did that."
Pellegrino was referencing the
occurrences involving Penn State
football coaches Jerry Sandusky
and Joe Paterno in late 2011. Pa-terno
was alleged to have purpose-fully
not reported Sandusky's se-rial
molestation of underage boys
on university property, according
to the Associated Press.
"We wanted to take what's re-quired
under federal law and also
adapt it to make a University pol-icy
that expands the requirements
basically to all employees," con-tinued
Pellegrino. "To have sort of
like a baseline requirement that if
you're made aware of a crime, par-ticularly
a crime of sexual assault,
you need to do something with it."
In the old policy, the responsi-bility
of faculty members and stu-dents
to report these crimes was
derived from their role, according
to statutes such as Tide IX and the
Jeanne Clery Act.
The policy now reads: "Whife
a University employee may advise
Photo Illustration by Martin O'SuIIivan/Ihe Mirror
The new 2012-13 Student Handbook features updated policies on sexual harassment and attendance.
the victim of sexual misconduct
that any conversation they have
with the victim will be private ...
they may not tell a victim that the
conversation will be confidential
unless that employee is subject to
privilege by law to maintain confi-dentiality
of an adult victim."
Pellegrino went on to explain
how the policy also expands upon
the scenario of "if the person mak-ing
the complaint is a minor." He
explained, "We have to remember
that we have anywhere from 2500
to 3000 children on our campus
using our facilities during the sum-mer
months."
Pellegrino said that "if the
claim is about a minor, the con-fidentiality
rules [of certain em-ployees
under statutes] essentially
go out the window. If you're pre-sented
with a claim by a minor, the
confidentiality rules don't apply."
POLICIES I PAGE 2
Martin O'Sullivan/The Mirror
fairfieldmirror.com
Stahl gives hope
BY NICOLETTA RICHARDSON
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Many Fairfield students feel
pressured at some point dur-ing
their college years to decide
what they'll be doing for a career.
But for CBS' "60 Minutes" re-porter
Lesley Stahl, she decided
she wanted to become a reporter
at age 30.
Stahl spoke at the Open Vi-sions
Forum held at the Quick
Center last Wednesday night.
She talked about the current
transition America is undergo-ing.
Becoming an American
television journalist at a late age,
Stahl has seen many changes oc-cur
throughout her career.
Before "60 Minutes," Stahl
worked at "Face the Nation" as
a moderator and "America To-night"
as an anchor. She has
now been working as a reporter
at CBS for 21 years and has seen
the way sharing the news to the
public has changed throughout
the 40 years that she has worked
in the journalism industry.
Stahl compared the new age
of technology that people live
in today to what she had grown
up with. Stahl said, "Television
brought this country together,
but then cable and Internet
broke us apart."
Using a humorous conver-sation
to engage the audience
in the subject, Stahl said, "You
know who watches 60 Minutes?
... No. ... Old people and their
parents." The Quick Center au-dience
laughed, but there was a
feeling of truth to her words.
According to Stahl, technol-ogy
has changed everything. She
added that the pace of new tech-nology
is rapidly quickening, and
that "no one can keep up."
However, Stahl gave positive
advice to the students in the au-dience
who will be entering the
working field of this new techno-logical
age.
"No matter how bad it gets,
you can always bounce back,"
said Stahl. "The message is this:
don't forget to call your mother."
STAHL I PAGE 2
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