Mirror - Vol. 38, No. 06 - October 17, 2012

              THE B^MIRROR
Week of October 17,2012 • Vol. 38, Iss. 6 • The Reflection ofFairfield • Independent Student Newspaper of Fairfield University
Photographer captures political history
BY NICOLETTA RICHARDSON
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
With the presidential elec-tion
only three weeks away,
students usually observe the
election from only an outside
perspective. But on Monday
night in the LLBCC, former Time
photographer P.F. Bentley gave
his audience the inside scoop on
the presidential lifestyle through
never-before seen images.
P.F. Bentley is a former pho-tojournalist
and Special Cor-respondent
for Time magazine,
but has also been published in
the New York Times Magazine,
The Washington Post, and many
other media sources around the
world. Bentley was the first pho-tojournalist
to depict the House
floor in session through images.
"I kind of wanted to try a
new thing," said Bentley. "What
would it be like to be in the cam-paign
looking out, where I was
out looking in? What happened
after the show was gone?"
Bentley is respected
throughout the print and broad-cast
community for earning ac-cess
to presidential candidates
during their campaigns, accord-ing
to Bentley's official website.
His subjects range from past
presidents, such as George Bush
and Ronald Reagan, to presiden-tial
hopefuls such as Jesse Jack-son
and Bob Dole.
Bentley photographed Bill
"I kind ofwanted
to try a new thing.
What would it be
like to be in the
campaign looking
out, where I was out
looking in? What
happened after the
show was gone? "
-P.F. Bentley
Clinton during his run for presi-dent.
Clinton agreed over a hand
shake that Bentley could shoot
whatever he wanted.
Clinton requested that Bent-ley
traveled with him and would
never repeat what he had heard.
Bentley ended up covering Clin-ton's
first presidential run in 1991
to 1992 and also the last week of
his presidency.
One of Bendey's images
was chosen by Clinton to be
displayed in his living room, ac-cording
to Bentley. The picture
portrays Bill and Hilary Clinton
physically exhausted, lying to-gether
on a couch after a pizza
meeting. To Clinton, it portrayed
much more than an image of
him and his wife. Bentley said
that Clinton thought it "told the
tale of how hard the campaign is,
what happens to you."
Bentley not only described
the behind-the-scene moments
he captured of the president, but
also of history. He was in the
White House when the twin tow-ers
fell in New York City. Bentley
captured Bush and other politi-cians
in his photographs while
crucial decisions were being
made.
Yet Bentley thought, "For the
first time, we were one country."
He described the Republi-cans
and the Democrats being
in the same room, and putting
aside differences for the sake of
the American people.
do a deal. They could argue all
day out there, but in the evening
time they go out. There's a lot of
hate, so who pays for it? All of us
do."
A 1 -
though he wit-nessed
this unity
that was present
during 9/11, he
also saw it fall apart
because of the nature
of political parties.
Bentley left Time
magazine 10 years ago
and is currently a docu-mentary
filmmaker and
editor for corporate clients,
according to his website. Bent-ley
now lives on a small island
in Hawaii and describes it as "a
good balance." He hopes to re-tire
in the near future.
At the closing of the event,
Bentley was asked if he still has
hope for the future of America.
"Yeah, I got hope," said Bent-ley.
"I got hope that like one day,
that bulb will go off, and they'll
say, 'Why are you arguing?' And
you know, when you look at the
older guys, they knew how to
Survey reevaluates criteria for academic integrity
BY MOLLY LEIDIG
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Student responses will ulti-mately
determine changes to Fair-field
University's policy on aca-demic
integrity.
The school's regulations de-fine
academic integrity as intellec-tual
honesty.
Beginning Oct. 22, an aca-demic
integrity survey is being
launched via student mailboxes.
The goal of this survey is "to paint
an accurate picture of our own
campus attitudes, compare those
with other campuses and in doing
so engage the campus community
in a conversation about integrity,"
according to Dr. Kathy Nantz, pro-fessor
of Economics and head of
the survey task force.
The results of the survey will
be returned in December.
But where does Fairfield stand
at the moment? An informal sur-vey
of 29 students shows a preview
of what the survey may reveal. It
found several results regarding
cheating, including:
• All 29 students have wit-nessed
another student
openly and purposely cheat-ing.
• 11 students admitted to
openly and purposely
cheating themselves.
• Roughly 25 percent of
the students felt guilty
and undeserving of a
grade they received in
the past.
• 22 students felt angry
and bothered when wit-nessing
another student
cheat.
If most people become
angry with others for cheat-ing,
why do students cheat?
Some students argued
that they turn to cheating as a
coping mechanism for heavy
workloads, and they feel as if
it is their only escape from the
demanding college schedule.
Other students feel pressured
to succeed and believe cheat-ing
is their only option to do
well.
"Society puts so much
importance on GPA and suc-ceeding
in the classroom and
with some courses, no matter
how hard I study, I know I am
not going to live up to these
high standards," said a junior
named Alex, who prefers that
her last name remain unknown.
"Cheating, with the possibility of
getting caught, was worth the risk
for me because I feel good about
myself when I get good grades."
But Fairfield isn't the only
fairfieldmirror.com
^^k school with a cheating
problem.
One of the most fa-mous
cheating scandals
comes from the United
States Military Academy at
West Point.
The school prides it-self
on honesty and states
on their website that their
mission is to prepare each
graduate to be "a commis-sioned
leader of character
committed to the values
of Duty, Honor, Country."
In addition, their code of
honor that simply reads,
"A cadet will not lie, cheat,
steal, or tolerate those who
do."
Yet this code of honor
was severely violated.
In a 1976 cheating
scandal, more than 150
cadets resigned or were
expelled for cheating on a
take-home electrical engi-neering
exam, according
to an article in The Wall
/Street Journal.
A more recent scan-dal
at Harvard shows an-other
example of how no
school is superior when it comes to
cheating.
An examination given at Har-vard
was "open book, open note,
open Internet" but there was one
other small rule: "students may not
discuss the exam with others."
Although still under investiga-tion,
it is suspected that more than
half of the class of over 250 students
"inappropriately collaborated or
plagiarized on that exam," accord-ing
to CNN.
When approached, the stu-dents
at Harvard were bewildered
that they were even being accused
of cheating.
"It's horrible when any stu-dent
cheats or is accused of cheat-ing.
But, we look to Harvard as one
of the world's leader institutions in
education, and as a leader, we look
for more from places like Harvard,"
said American ethicist Bruce Wein-stein.
Based on these occurrences,
there seems to be much confusion
regarding academic honesty in uni-versities
nationwide.
Fairfield has exhibited simi-lar
confusion in the informal sur-vey
when 29 students questioned
whether their behaviors could be
considered academic dishonesty.
Fairfield University has caught
SURVEY I PA§§ 2
^W @MirrorFairfleld connect with us online! The Fairfield Mirror