Mirror - Vol. 39, No. 12 - November 20, 2013

              THE MIRROR Student newspaper Week of November 20,2013 Vol. 39, Iss. 12
www.fairfieldmirror.com Mi
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The Fairfield Mirror
Freshmen strive to bring Greek life to FU
Two Fairfield freshmen, Matthew Peacock and Nick Ferry, look to push the university to join other Jesuit
universities who currently accept Greek life organizations. Tebben Gill Lopez/The Mirror
By Robert Joyce
Crime Beat Reporter
Over the past two weeks, Nick
Ferry '17 and Matthew Peacock '17
have been working together to gather
support from classmates and the ad-ministration
to start Greek life at Fair-field.
After agreeing that Fairfield lacks
in school spirit, Ferry and Peacock de-cided
they would try to improve the
university by giving Greek life a home
at Fairfield.
Seeing the lack of school spirit
and community "bothers us," said
Ferry.
STARTING A MOVEMENT
Ferry and Peacock became inter-ested
in starting Greek life at Fairfield
after hearing about what it has to of-fer
from their friends at other schools,
mostly larger universities in the south.
Both freshman business majors, they
knew Fairfield didn't have Greek life
when they chose to attend and do not
regret their decision.
On Thursday evening, they will
be discussing implementing Greek life
at Fairfield at FUSA's Presidential Open
Forum in the Lower Level Barone
Campus Center. Karen Donoghue,
dean of students, and Tom Pellegrino,
vice president for student affairs, are
scheduled to be in attendance.
"Hopefully we can pack the Low-er
Level BCC," said Ferry.
According to Janice Herbert '15,
chair of the Council Of Student Or-ganizations,
Greek life will not be the
primary focus of the presidential fo-rum,
but rather a "heavier weighted
conversation topic."
"I think it's going to spark some
great conversation ... it's something
that is very open to discussion and
would obviously change Fairfield s cul-ture
somehow," Herbert added.
Recently, Ferry and Peacock have
created a Facebook group (219 mem-bers
as of Nov. 20) and hung flyers
around campus, advertising their ef-forts.
They also met with FUSA class
presidents from the freshman, sopho-more
and senior classes, and they have
gained official support from FUSA and
COSO.
"We need as much support as we
can get," said Peacock.
Both Ferry and Peacock agree
that they are in the early stages of this
process, but they are glad for the sup-port.
Ferry and Peacock will be speak-ing
on the open floor at the presi-dential
forum, according to Herbert,
where anyone has the ability to speak.
The two have also been in contact
with J.D. Ford, director of expansion
and recruitment for Theta Chi, which
is an international fraternity with
more than 6,700 undergraduate mem-bers
nationwide.
The two students agree that they
will not have any trouble getting stu-dents
to pledge. "That's the easy part.
The hard part will be turning people
down," said Ferry.
With a negative stigma sur-rounding
Greek life and its effects on
Fairfield, Ferry said, "Greek life here
wouldn't run the school ... there are
plenty of other clubs and organizations
out there that don't run the school."
WHAT DO THE STUDENTS
WANT?
One hundred eighty nine stu-dents
were surveyed to gauge their in-terests
in Greek life at Fairfield. 47.62
percent of the students surveyed said
they support the idea of having frater-nities
and sororities at Fairfield. 40.21
percent of students said they did not
support the idea, and 12.17 percent
were impartial.
However, of the 189 students
surveyed, a majority of 51.85 percent
said they would consider pledging if
Fairfield had fraternities and sorori-ties.
35.45 percent said they would not
consider pledging, and 12.70 percent
were impartial.
Herbert said that for Greek life to
be approved, it would not be an easy
process. "Step one is basically show-ing
that the students want it, and that's
with the open forum," said Herbert.
Fred Kuo, director of student involve-ment,
Donoghue and Pellegrino would
also need to provide support.
"To a certain degree, students ei-ther
want it or don't want it, and it will
really come down to the numbers of
students that are there in support and
against it," said Alex Long '14, FUSA
president.
According to Joe Villarosa '16,
Greek life "would only encourage fur-ther
social segregation. Fairfield stu-dents
tend to be clique-y, and frater-nities
and sororities would only make
this problem worse," stated Villarosa
Father Michael Doody, S.J., how-ever,
said that "friendship circles are
always exclusive, whether they're fra-ternities
or sororities or not."
"I just don't see the point in not
having fraternities or sororities," stated
NovyThaib'16. "Why would you deny
having the advantage of being able to
collaborate with other campus orga-nizations
and putting on social events
to help keep the student body feel like
they're connected to Fairfield Univer-sity?"
Thaib stated: "It helps students
coming into a brand new school feel
like they are a part of something right
off the bat, it builds their leadership in-terpersonal
skills, and introduces them
to people from different backgrounds
which can lead to a more open minded
and accepting community."
Sophomore Molly Camp stated:
"Greek life creates a divide in society.
If you look at how people are placed
into sororities, you see that they can
tend to be materialistic. In order to
grow as a society, we must break barri-ers
and show that we are all equal and
Greek life takes society back instead of
forward."
"This is one of the biggest oppor-tunities
for them to publicize the idea
READ BOARD ON PAGE 4
By the numbers:
A quick look at Greek life at Jesuit universities
28
13
46
54
JESUIT UNIVERSITIES IN THE USA
JESUIT UNIVERSITIES DO NOT RECOGNIZE
GREEK LIFE
PERCENT OF JESUIT UNIVERSITIES WHO
DO NOT RECOGNIZE GREEK LIFE HAVE
SOME SORT OF UNAFFILIATED GREEK LIFE
ORGANIZATION(S)
PERCENT OF JESUIT UNIVERSITIES
RECOGNIZE GREEK LIFE ORGANIZATIONS
Students 'try to put a face on' conflict in Syria
W By Enxhi Myslymi
Associate News Editor
Having family that lives in
Syria, Iman Jebara '17 did not real-ize
how much the Syrian civil war af-fected
her family until recently.
"I logged onto Facebook and
saw a thumbnail of my uncle, and
he's my favorite uncle, and he was
saying he was a terrorist," said Je-bara.
Shocked, Jebara and her family
immediately contacted their family
abroad to find out her uncle "was
taken from his home in front of his
seven children," and forced to lie
about his political beliefs by stating
he was affiliated with a terrorist or-ganization.
Jebara spoke about her experi-ence
regarding the Syrian conflict
during the "Dialogue on Syria" dis-cussion
that took place in Barone
Campus Center's Lower Level on
Thursday, Nov. 14.
"A week later my other uncle
was taken and my third uncle had to
flee the country," Jebara continued.
"We had people that threatened my
family ... [and] we still haven't heard
back from my uncle that was on TV"
Junior Kaneez Fatema Anwar,
co-president of the Muslim Student
Association, said, "What's going on
in Syria is real. It's constant and it is
a crisis and will continue to be one
unless other actors will step in and
take responsibility for crimes against
humanity."
MSA worked with the Jesuit
Universities Humanitarian Action
Network to organize the discussion
in order to educate students and
community members on the Syrian
conflict. It included expert panelists
Dr. Marcie Patton, professor of poli-tics;
Drs. David McFadden and Silvia
Marsans-Sakly, professors of history;
arid Gary Shaye, senior director for
the Humanitarian Response for Save
the Children.
According to McFadden, how-ever,
it is a difficult task for other
countries, including the United
States, to step in and attempt to re-solve
the conflict.
"The American people may
have short memories, but they have
READ CRISIS ON PAGE 3
NEWS:
Page 4
OPINION:
Page 5
SPORTS:
Page 16