Mirror - Vol. 38, No. 11 -November 28, 2012

              THE IRROR
Week of November 28,2012 • Vol. 38, Iss. 10 • The Reflection of Fairfield • Independent Student Newspaper of Fairfield University
Glee Club strives to hit a high note
Nick DiFazlo/7/ie Mirror
Dr. Carole Ann Maxwell conducts the 130 male and female voices that represent Fairfield's Glee Club as they rehearse and prepare for their Christmas performance this weekend.
BY DANICA CEBALLOS
NEWS EDITOR
BY EMMA DIGIOVINE
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Three months of planning,
singing and learning from each
other will finally be showcased
this weekend at the Fairfield
University Glee Club perfor-mance,
"On This Night."
The music is a mixture of
classical, Broadway and popu-lar
music and centers on the
theme of rebirth. The Glee Club
will be doing a gospel rendition
of "Oh Holy Night," along with
"Gloria," which will be sung in
Latin.
Several soloists will be
singing popular songs taken
from U2 and the musical, "Love
Never Dies," The entire club will
be singing "The Many Moods of
Christmas," which is a medley
of various Christmas carols.
The Glee Club, which is
Fairfield's oldest club, has been
practicing every Monday and
Wednesday evening since Sep-tember
and will have their fi-nal
rehearsal this Wednesday.
According to one of the solo
singers, Seamus Barrett '16,
this concert is "the most formal
concert of the semester. It's a
big deal."
In addition to the Glee Club
practices twice a week, other
groups within the club practice
on their own. These groups in-clude:
Chamber Singers, Ben-sonians,
Sweet Harmony and
the performance soloists.
Dr. Carole Ann Maxwell is
the director of Fairfield's Glee
Club, which is composed of
130 students. Maxwell made
her debut as a conductor when
she was 16 and later came to
Fairfield in 1980. She has been
the conductor of the Glee Club
since then and became direc-tor
in 1987.
"I have played instruments.
I have sung. I have done all
of that in preparation for this
conducting career," explained
Maxwell.
When Maxwell first be-came
a part of the Glee Club
on campus, it was all-male.
This tradition was established
in 1947; however, in 1987, the
men and women were merged
together. Since then, Maxwell
explained that she has watched
the club grow in size and talent
in monumental ways.
"This is the largest that
the club has ever been. When
the students come in as young
singers, they are told what is
expected of them, and we fol-low
through with it for their
four years," stated Maxwell.
"They all have a certain pride
and love of choral singing."
Maxwell's method for
training and perfecting the var-ious
voices of the Glee Club is
based on the passion that each
GLEE | PAGE 2
Black Friday*n&
Cyber Monday shopping
The Mirror handed out a survey
that asked a total of 102 students
about their holiday shopping.
1 People who spent money
I People who did not spend money
Graph by Loan Le/The Mirror
Mone
Black Friday:
$7,893
Cyber Monday
$ 3,040
Campus groups unite
BY KELSEY GUERIN
VINE EDITOR
DEALS | PAGE 2
3F @MirrorFairfield
On Monday night, a small
but passionate group of student
leaders assembled in the BCC to
form a new network of humani-tarian
and justice activists on
campus.
Known as the Progressive
Student Alliance (PSA), this or-ganization
formed for the pur-pose
of bringing exposure to im-portant
causes on campus and
providing support for student
organizations trying to make a
difference.
PSA first organized late last
year, and so the network was still
in its early stages at the end of
the semester. As a result, they are
"just now finding out how best to
network to strengthen our move-ments
collectively," according to
Arturo Jaras Watts '14.
Jaras Watts is one of the two
remaining students involved in
the launch of PSA last year. How-ever,
both he and his remaining
cofounder Luke Record '14 were
quick to emphasize throughout
the meeting that the purpose of
PSA was not to create a new or-fairfieldmirror.
com
ganization with them as leaders.
Rather, PSA will function as a
horizontal network of dedicated
leaders who provide support for
other organizations on campus
with important causes.
"Each of us here represent
different clubs that we are com-mitted
to," said Record. "But the
purpose of PSA is so that when
it gets to a point... where you go
and present these ideas and it's
on the line and you need backup,
we can come."
Record clarified that this
support was not automatic. "If
you need a petition that needs
to be signed, we should all read
it and not just blindly follow you
guys," Record said, "but I think
we can see the benefits that this
would accrue for all of us."
Another important function
of PSA is to increase the visibil-ity
of important humanitarian
and justice events happening on
campus. In order to accomplish
this goal, PSA discussed options
such as compiling a bathroom
newsletter that lists these events
and provides information about
the clubs and organizations
sponsoring them.
"We have events like the
phenomenal Take Back the Night
event that happens every year
and we want participation to be
as large as possible," said Jaras
Watts. "The newsletter would
serve that side of the function
of increasing the visibility and
reaching a greater portion of
Fairfield students." The group
also discussed creating a public
space such as a bulletin board in
the BCC that would display these
events and club information.
In all, ten different groups
and organizations were repre-sented
at the meeting on Mon-day,
although not all clubs in-volved
in PSA were able to send
representatives to the meeting.
These groups ranged from the
environmental club Leaders for
Environmental Action at Fairfield
(LEAF) to Act Against, a student
movement that works to bring
important issues to the forefront
of campus consciousness.
The organizations and clubs
involved in PSA are currently
working on assembling their
newsletter, which they hope to
release during the first weeks of
next semester.
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