Mirror - Vol. 39, No. 11 - November 13, 2013

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@fairfieldmirror
The Fairfield Mirror
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Tebben Gill Lopez/The Mirror
Students speak with nonprofit organizations at the post-grad service career fair yesterday.
Planning for post-grad service
By Enxhi Myslymi
Associate News Editor
After working as a Resident
Assistant in 70 McCormick Road
last year, Sarah Krikorian '14 real-ized
the difference she could make
in her community.
"I enjoyed the Service for
Justice Residential College and
the program," Krikorian said. "I
learned so much as a Resident As-sistant
about giving back."
Yesterday Krikorian attended
the nonprofit and post-grad
service career fair in the Oak Room
and met with representatives of
nonprofit organizations about
volunteering her time after
graduation.
"I wasn't planning on coming,
but now I'm genuinely interested
in everything I see and the people
here seem genuinely interested in
this," she said.
This year marks the first time
that Campus Ministry and the Ca-reer
Planning Center have com-bined
to organize the event, which
brought in nonprofit organizations
such as Teach for America, Boston
College School of Theology and
Ministry and Project Purple.
"I don't want people to think
that there is only work or grad
school after college. I want people
to know that there are other op-tions,"
said Cathleen Borgman '80,
director of the Career Planning
Center. "Not everybody is wired
the same way and you shouldn't
have to go down the same path."
The annual event has been
organized by Campus Ministry
for at least 10 years. It began as a
faith-based event where Catholic-affiliated
organizations would be
invited to Fairfield to connect with
students, and it has expanded to
include organizations without re-ligious
affiliation.
"Campus Ministry and Ca-reer
Planning combined efforts ...
and we're going to try and make it
bigger and bigger," Borgman said.
Campus Minister for Immer-
READ WORK ON PAGE 4
NCAA: Fairfield GSR highest in MAAC
By Timothy Leach
Contributing Writer
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has re-cently
announced that Fairfield University has the 12th
highest graduation success rate amongst student athletes
in the nation. Additionally, Fairfield has the highest GSR
of all 11 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference colleges and
universities.
Seventeen of Fairfield's varsity programs are above
the national average of Division I student-athletes that
enrolled between 2003-06, with 15 of those programs
having a success rate of 100 percent. Fairfield has con-sistently
upheld a GSR of 94 percent or higher since the
NCAA's inception.
According to FairfieldStags.com, the GSR measures
graduation over six years from initial college enrollment,
meaning Fairfield should be expected to continue up-holding
their excelled standards for years to come.
The overall GSR for Fairfield is 81 percent, which
is also calculated through a grouping that maintains the
stats within the last six years. While both are very re-spectable
GSR's, there is a noticeable difference between
the two with athletes seeming to have the advantage.
"It's like comparing apples and oranges," said Direc-tor
of Admission Karen Pellegrino. "There's a lot of fac-tors
that contribute to a student's success once they get
here."
Looking at Fairfield's records of first-year accep-tance,
it has generally been accepting more students
within the past few years, from 60 percent acceptance of
applications in 2006 compared to 71 percent acceptance
of applications in 2012. In turn, the sizes of our incoming
classes have been increasing.
The class of 2016 enrolled 990 students, the largest
26 Perlitz victims file
lawsuits against Fairfield
By Loan Le
Editor-in-Chief
Twenty-one new lawsuits filed
last Thursday allege that Fairfield
University and others failed to
supervise Douglas Perlitz '92, who
was sentenced to nearly 20 years in
prison for sexually abusing boys at a
school he founded in Haiti.
These new cases bring the total
of lawsuits against Fairfield and oth-ers
to 26, said the victims' attorney,
Mitchell Garabedian. The lawsuits
demand $20 million for each victim.
The plaintiffs of the new lawsuits
are ages 18 through 27, and they were
abused from 2000 to 2008 at ages 10
to 20, according to Garabedian. Some
were abused by Perlitz repeatedly, he
added.
Garabedian is also investigating
30 other victims.
In addition to Fairfield, other
defendants include Society of Jesus of
New England and Sovereign Military
Hospitaller Order of Saint John of
Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta.
With a grant from the Knights
of Malta, Perlitz founded the Pierre
Toussaint School for street boys in
1997. Two years later, Haiti Fund^.an
organization led by former Fairfield
Campus Ministry Director Fr. Paul
Carrier, other Fairfield employees and
wealthy Roman Catholics from the
county, formed to oversee the school.
Allegations of sexual abuse
emerged in 2007, but according to
the law firm Day Pitney, Fairfield had
no knowledge of the allegations until
May 2, 2008. Project Pierre Toussaint
has since closed down.
In 2010, Perlitz pleaded guilty
to traveling to Haiti for the purpose
of engaging in sexual conduct with a
minor.
Previously, 24 victims had filed
lawsuits against Fairfield and others,
alleging they were negligent in the
supervision of Perlitz while he was in
Haiti. Fairfield's lawyer, Stanley Twar-dy,
of Day Pitney, had said that Pierre
Toussaint is separate from the Uni-versity.
The lawsuits were dismissed
in July and a $12 million settlement
was reached. Garabedian said he has
received the total amount, and he is
distributing it to the victims.
Douglas Perlitz '92 is serving 20 years
for sexually abusing boys at a school
he founded in Haiti. File Photo
"It's not unusual for victims who
were sexually abused to feel alone and
isolated," said Garabedian. When vic-tims
learn of others stepping forward,
"they feel a sense of empowerment,"
and decide to pursue their own cases,
he said.
These victims should be "com-mended,"
Garabedian said.
Inquiries to Fairfield were re-ferred
to Twardy, who responded say-ing
that the school has yet to be served
their papers for the 26 lawsuits. Once
they receive the papers, they will be-gin
to respond, Twardy said.
READ RANKINGS ON PAGP- 3
Leigh Tauss/The Mirror
The WW II Victory Medal, Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart are given
to those who have gone above and beyond the call of duty. On Nov. 11, to
commemorate Veterans Day, four U.S. veterans presented works of creative
writing and discussed "just war" in the lower level BCC. Story on page 8
OPINION: SPORTS:
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