Mirror - Vol. 08, No. 20 - January 31, 1985

              "The Image
of
Fairfield"
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Volume 8, No. 20 Thursday, January 31, 1985 Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut 06430 Incorporated 1977
Townhouse Lottery Held, Contracts Signed
by Chris Tyler
Members of the class of 1986 had a forty-eight
percent chance of getting one of the much sought
after Townhouse units on campus. According to
Rev. John W. Keegan, Director of Student Resi-dences,
twenty-nine Townhouse units were avail-able
to the class of 1986. Fr. Keegan also stated
that sixty-one groups of students entered the lot-tery
from the class of 1986. The 244 students were
vying for the 116 available beds in the Townhouse
complex.
Members of the class of 1987 fared worse in
the lottery that was staged Thursday afternoon
Rev., John W. Keegan S.J. reads the name of
one of the lucky few recipients of a townhouse
which were given out in a lottery held last
week. [Photo by Marie Bolger]
in the Campus Center Oak Room. Of the 400 stu-dents
that entered the lottery from the class of
1987 only 88 were recipients of Townhouses. The
22 groups of four were evenly split between male
and female houses, according to Fr. Keegan. The
100 groups of four students from the sophomore
class had a slightly better than twenty percent
chance of obtaining a Townhouse unit for this fall.
According to Fr. Keegan, the lottery amongst
the class of '87 posed some concern. Of the 100
groups seeking Townhouses, fifty-seven of them
were female and forty-three were male. The wide
margin mattered little, as the end result was an
even allocation of the Townhouses.
The race for units among the junior class was
more even stated Fr. Keegan. There were sixty-one
groups of students from that class and thirty-one
were female and the remaining thirty were
male. The lottery in that class was also an even
distribution of the Townhouses.
"The lottery was held so soon in the semester
to answer the pleas of those students to get it over
with as soon as possible," said Fr. Keegan. The
Department of Student Services has come un-der
sharp criticism for the handling of the lottery
and the timing of the lottery was an issue that was
raised. The issue seems yet to be resolved, as
one student points out, "I wish they would have
it even earlier. It's really too late to be looking for
a beach house now because most of them have
gone already."
Students had mixed feelings towards the lot-tery.
Said one student, "It's really stupid. They
should go to all seniors. That way you'll be sure
Deficit Impairs Scholarship
by Chris Tyler
Due to the deficit that F.U.S.A. has encountered,
the F.U.S.A. scholarship fund is badly in need of
financial assistance. According to Fran Kenneally,
F.U.S.A. president, the deficit that the student
government has had to deal with has prevented
F.U.S.A. from making substantial financial gains
with respect to the scholarship fund. "We have
had other obligations within the student govern-ment
which have really hurt our ability to reach
our goal of $5,000," said Mr. Kenneally.
The scholarship is to be based on two factors,
need and involvement in the university. Accord-ing
to the F.U.S.A. president this is to benefit the
students who are in the greatest need and doing
more for the University Community.
The plan for the scholarship is to develop an
endowment. "An endowment never goes away.
Each year we'll use the interest off the $5,000,"
commented Fran Kenneally. The present plan is
to secure a goal of $5,000 and place it in a high
yield, interest bearing account. The interest
earned will be divided, a portion will be used as
direct scholarship funding, and the remainder will
be re-invested in the endowment. "The interest
earned is about twelve percent. Eight of it will be
used as gifts to students, and the rest put back.
This means that there is not going to be a great
deal of money at first, but it will continue to grow
and be able to help more people," added Fran
Kenneally.
According to Mr. Kenneally money for the fund
has been raised through staging events like Air-bands
and the Halloween dance. Lisa Johnson
is coordinating the fund raising campaign, but
Mr. Kenneally also added, "Right now we are in
great need of ideas for fund raising."
Deficit problems have left approximately five
hundred dollars in the scholarship program, but
Mr. Kenneally added, "I think we'll make it. It will
take all our effort this semester, but we should
reach our goal."
Mr. Kenneally also stated that the department
of Financial Aid will be responsible for supplying
the list of students who are in need of scholar-ship
funding and F.U.S.A. will be working with
Financial Aid in administering the scholarship al-location.
Those who are interested in working on this
project or those who desire more information can
contact the F.U.S.A. office or write to Box P at Fair-field
University.
and get in one. Isn't it kind of crazy that you can
have a Townhouse for your junior year and as a
senior you don't get one. Getting rid of squatters
isn't good if it's open to both classes." Another
student said, 'I think the loss of squatters is silly.
It's wrong. But, a lottery is a lottery. You assume
that it's run fairly and if you don't get one, well
there's no sense in sour grapes." Squatter's rights
to the Townhouse units were dissolved in order
to give all students entering the lottery a better
chance of obtaining one of the units. Another com-plaint
made by some students about the lottery
is the fact that some of the groups of four were
forced to enter the junior lottery. Said one student,
"It isn't fair. We had to go into the junior lottery
where we had a worse chance of getting our
house."
Contracts for the Townhouses were available
for signing beginning last Monday in the offices
of Student Services. The contracts outline the
rules and regulations regarding Townhouse liv-ing.
The contract also spells out specifically what
the rights and responsibilities of both the leasees
(the students) and the leasors (the university) with
respect to Townhouse life.
In addition the Townhouse lottery has caused
a deluge of calls to local realtors from Fairfield
University students who are now seeking beach
houses as a result of their failure to obtain Town-houses.
One local realtor commented, "I must
have gotten about twenty calls in one afternoon
(Thursday) and another twenty the next day (Fri-day)
all from university students who are looking
to move to the beach."
Problems in the beach area between Fairfield
University students and permanent beach resi-dents
have left the future of the beach uncertain.
One student who secured a beach house for the
fall and was not given a Townhouse for the fall
said, "It really is a shame that both types of hous-ing
cause so many problems. It wouid make the
situation a lot easier for everyone if some kind
of university housing were available at the beach
so that those who lost out on a Townhouse could
go to the beach and not have to worry about
bothering the residents there." Currently the
university is not fostering any plans to build a resi-dence
at the beach, but the University's Master
Plan has provisions for additional Townhouses
in the future.
Carol Mansfield, Student Services' Townhouse Coordinator, has been signing contracts all
week. Signing for the much desired units will be completed tomorrow.
[Photo by Stephen J. Humes]
F.U.S.A. Discusses Finances
by Connie McKenna
Money took priority at the January 23rd F.U.S.A.
meeting in the newly renovated basement con-frence
room in the campus center.
After the Kenneally Administration's year-long
efforts to reduce an $18,000 deficit, the pressing
question now is how much has been reduced.
F.U.S.A. Legislature mandated last semester that
$6,000 be removed from this year's budget. This
spreads the deficit burden over three years. In
last Wednesday's meeting, the fall semester's ex-penses
were put forth.
Chuck Hacker, treasurer, presented the final
tally of last semester's expenses, profits and loss-es
pertaining to F.U.S.A. special events. The larg-est
loss absorbed by F.U.S.A. on a single event
was over $2000 for the speech by Ralph Nader.
The largest amount in black ink on F.U.S.A.'s
books was for the Halloween party, which profit-ed
$1,197. In total, F.U.S.A. suffered a loss on spe-cial
events of just over $6,000. Remaining in
F.U.S.A.'s account for this semester, however, is
a healthy $37,311, which, according to Fran Ken-neally,
is "within a thousand dollars of last
semester's budget."
Also discussed at the meeting were plans for
the upcoming open house of F.U.S.A.'s new
offices. The cabinet members also discussed the
possibility of offering the use of meeting room B42
one or two nights a week to other clubs needing
a place to meet.
Loyola Hall Stages Debate
After the five candidates made opening statements, they fielded questions from the audience
at Monday night's debate in Loyola. Seated L-R, Fran Reed, Jay Lo Vetere, Cathy Kiley, David
Smith (Moderator), John Mancini and Jim English. [Photo by Stephen J. Humes]
by Chris Tyler
Loyola Hall staged a debate last Monday be-tween
the five prospective F.U.S.A. candidates.
The four Resident Advisors from the dorm spon-sored
what they called "The Great Informal De-bate."
The debate offered each candidate five
minutes to speak and then gave them an oppor-tunity
to field questions from the floor. Two stu-dents,
however, made allegations of campaign
violations by two of the candidates.
According to John Matheson, who is on the
Election Committee representing Student Court,
the distribution of literature is prohibited until
seven days prior to the primary. As Monday was
eight days before the primary election, David
Young, '85, and William Dully, '85, charged both
the Reed and Mancici camps with illegally dis-tributing
campaign literature outside of the allot-ted
time period. Mr. Matheson met with the other
members of the elections committee to determine
if other violations of the elections code were com-mitted.
Said John Matheson, "I have heard alle-gations
that some candidates have been putting
up printed signs and posters illegally. We'll be
looking into that." He went on to add that although
the maximum penalty would be disqualification,
he felt that the most serious punishment would
be to restrict those candidates found in violation
from putting up posters and force them to take
down existing signs for a period of time if they
were in fact found to have violated the election
code.
During the debate, Cathy Kiley, '86, stated that
she felt her experience working in two F.U.S.A.
administrations and her work in both sides of the
student government (Student Life and Student
Activities) gave her an advantage no one else had.
"I think that I have a pretty good idea of what works
and what doesn't," said Kiley. She also stated that
Student Activities had been badly neglected in
the past and needed to have more attention paid
to it. She said, "I'm sure everyone knows about
basketball games, Oak Rooms and other cultur-al
events but I don't think anyone really knows
what F.U.S.A. really does or what's going on with
F.U.S.A. as far as the students go." She also indi-cated
a desire to publish a weekly or bi-weekly
newsletter to inform students about F.U.S.A.'s ac-tivities..
The second candidate to speak was Jay Love-tere.
Jay praised the changes that have been
made within the university to improve the quality
of the education, citing the change in the grad-ing
policy as one example. He did, however, go
on to criticize many aspects of the university that
he felt did not meet the needs of the students be-cause
they were inadequate or a "mystery." He
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