Mirror - Vol. 08, No. 23 - Feburary 21, 1985

              'The Image
of
Fairfield"
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Volume 8, No. 23 Thursday, February 21, 1985 Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut 06430 Incorporated 1977
Panel Urges Social Justice
by Thomas P. Moore
Changes in the core curriculum that would in-clude
more courses in Peace and Justice and a
possible required amount of hours working with
those in need, were some of the topics covered
at a conference that was held at the St. Ignatius
House on Monday, February 11. The overall theme
of the seminar that drew from the student body
and administration as well as the faculty dealt with
the injustices that exist on campus.
A committee of six members, two from each
of the three sectors of the university, was formed
to study ways to correct these social problems
and injustices. Sister Alice Gallin, O.S.U., the Ex-ecutive
Director of the Association of Catholic Col-leges
and Universities, from Washington, DC,
moderated the full day of discussions and group
meetings.
Both Villanova University in Pennsylvania and
Manhattan College in New York City have curric-ulum
programs dealing with these topics of so-cial
justice and peace studies.
The six representatives from the conference
that are members of the steering committee are
Mr. James D. Fitzpatrick, the Assistant Dean of
the Campus Center—University Activities and
Rev. John W. Keegan, S.J., the Director of Stu-
■ dent Residences from the administration; Profes-sors
Kevin Cassidy of the Politics Department and
Paul Lakeland of the Religious Studies Depart-ment
from the faculty; and two students, Ralph
L. Davis '87 and Dennis P. Heffern '88.
Invitations to this full day of hashing out the var-ious
social problems that exist on Fairfield's cam-pus
and the listing of the specific ways that these
injustices are seen in the classrooms, dorms,
houses and buildings of Fairfield came out of the
office of Rev. Christopher F. Mooney, S.J., the Vice
President of Academics. Sister Alice Gallin held
the format of the day together by having discus-sions
in both large groups and small, each time
throwing around various topics that related to the
social situation at the university as well as in the
world.
One conclusion that the body of university peo-ple
reached was that representatives from the staff
of the university should be invited to have some
input at the next month's meeting. It was stressed
that their input is needed and that they should
be represented on the committee of six that is
now reviewing the progress and proposals of the
meeting that was held last Monday.
Discussion involved the topic of the campus'
'homogeneity', the lack of variety in terms of abun-dance
of minority students or faculty and adminis-trators
from different racial and social
backgrounds. Some members of the panel felt
that this sameness existing at Fairfield is one of
the positive parts of the school. These people felt
that the current enrollment would decline if the
trend of sameness was tampered with by bring-ing
more of a spectrum of students and faculty
as well as administration to the university. Other
defenses of the 'homogeneity' hinged on the ease
that this situation creates when problems crop
up at the school, making the job of solving the
crisis easier because of the familiarity with the
manner in which those on campus will react.
The two students who are on the six member
steering committee, Dennis Heffern and Ralph
Davis, stressed that in addition to the possible
plans for core modification, other plans were dis-cussed.
The two undergrads talked of getting the
professors to incorporate various topics covered
in guests' lectures into the subject being dis-cussed
in class in order to give more of an inter-disciplinary
sense to the daily curriculum. .
Marie Mateos and Tom Begley, both of the class of 1986, have recently been named Senior
Week Co-chairs. The two will be planning for the week that commences May 15 and will
be choosing members of the Senior Week staff soon. For a related story, please turn
to page 2.
More Deaths On Highway
Turnpike Crashes Continue
by Stephen J. Humes
Another crossover crash occured on I-95 last
Friday, claiming two lives and injuring two peo-ple,
State Police reported.
The crash was the fourth "crossover" type ac-cident
which claimed lives on the Connecticut
Reagan's Proposals Slash Financial Aid
by Denise Murphy
Under President Ronald Reagan's proposal to
drastically cut government outlays for education
by $2.3 billion, Congress will be asked to trim
financial aid to college students by a 27%
margin—a cut that could translate into hard times
for many students at Fairfield.
Reagan's plan calls not only for heavy cuts in
three of the federal government's six major aid
programs. Coupled with these proposed
decreases are new, stricter eligibility requirements
for families and students which would serve to
limit access to the already shrinking federal
dollars.
One restriction would put an annual cap of
$4,000 on the amount of all forms of aid to a stu-dent,
along with a requirement that all students
provide at least $800 toward their education costs
in order to qualify for federal aid. In addition to
individual program changes, the President's
budget also calls for an amendment of the criter-ia
currently used to determine whether a student
is self-supporting. Any student who has not at-tained
22 years of age by July 1 of the award year
shall be deemed dependent unless that student
is an.orphan or a ward of the court. Students who
are older than 22 years of age by this date must
provide proof of economic self-sufficiency to be-come
independent.
In order to receive a Pell grant or direct loan
from the government, a family's adjusted gross
income could not exceed $25,000. Larry Wilkes,
Director of Financial Aid at Fairfield commented,
"22% of the recipients at Fairfield would be elimi-nated
with this rule alone. Those under the
$25,000 maximum would be cut drastically."
Guaranteed Student Loans are a program
designed to promote the availability of loans from
banks to students and their parents after taking
into consideration family financial resources and
other forms of student assistance. A ceiling of
$32,500 per family would be established by Rea-gan's
proposals whereby any family regardless
of size or number in college would be ineligible.
Wilkes remarked that, "61% of Fairfield's
recipients would be cut off. Just under 1500 stu-dents
are receiving loans this year. 900 of these
would be eliminated. Nationwide, this would make
900,000 students ineligible for loans. In short, the
cuts would be a slap at the grass-roots middle
income sector of our country."
A drop in the overall amount of Work/Study jobs
available would also accompany the fiscal year
'86 proposals. Currently, 300 students are em-ployed
in Work/Study positions. "Over the next
two years this could be drastically cut," said
Wilkes. "This figure would be reduced by 25%
over the next two years which means that 75 jobs
here would be lost." These cuts will no doubt work
out to cost the university more money. The univer-sity
will be forced to transfer students from the
Work/Study to the regular payroll in order to pro-vide
university services such as those at the
library and the Rec-Plex.
Stated Wilkes, "We are approaching $12,000
per year for total cost. If we can subsidize stu-dents
with only $4,000 from government funding,
this leaves an $8,000 gap which must be picked
up by the school and/or the student." Wilkes also
added, "For incoming freshmen classes, the cuts
will be taking away the opportunity to attend the
college of their choice, forcing them to go to the
one they can afford." Dallas Martin, Executive
Director of the National Assoc. of Student Finan-cial
Aid administrators, commented on the sub-ject,
"We won't have to worry about a Third World
War. There won't be anyone smart enough to
press the button." Wilkes mentioned that the cut-backs
could lead to a large number of dropouts
and transfers for Fairfield."
The Financial Aid Office encourages students
and parents to write their Congressmen to vote
against the proposal. Connecticut residents will
be relieved to know that Senator Lowell Weicker
has already come out against these cuts, promis-ing
he will not let them through Congress. Con-gress
has been in recess, but is expected to
reconvene on February 19, at which time they will
begin discussion. Information is now available in
the Financial Aid office located on the ground floor
of Loyola.
Turnpike since last October. In each case, a truck
or car jumped the median and struck oncoming
traffic.
• On October 1,1984, a tractor-trailer jumped
the median and crossed into oncoming traffic kill-ing
four people. That accident was caused by a
blown front tire, and Transportation Commissioner
J. William Burns admitted that Jersey barriers
might have stopped the truck from entering on-coming
traffic.
• On October 4,1984, a Stamford woman died
after her car crossed a guardrail on the turnpike
in Stamford and crashed into an oncoming truck.
• On January 13, 1985, a Stratford man was
killed when another car crossed the median,
crashing in Greenwich.
• Last Friday's crash, when a tanker truck lost
control crashing into two westbound cars before
jumping the median and crushing an oncoming
car.
Connecticut's Department of Transportation is
currently installing the "Jersey" barriers on I-95.
These barriers are designed to redirect traffic
back into the lane, while preventing head-on col-lisions.
Some sections of Interstate 95 in Green-wich
and Stamford already have the Jersey
barriers.
Of the two cars struck before the truck jumped
the guardrail in last Friday's crash, one was oc-cupied
by Sandra Burgess, '86, of 2142 Fairfield
Beach Road. Miss Burgess and Polly Woolbert,
also of 2142 Fairfield Beach Road, were pas-sengers
in a car driven by Karen Rogers of 65
Colony Road, Westport. All three women escaped
injury and could not be reached for comment.
The other car which the truck hit in the east-bound
lane landed on the guardrail. The driver,
Richard Ratkowsky of Suffern, N.Y. was treated
for a leg injury and released.
The truck landed on a car driving Eastbound.
Both occupants, of West Virginia, were killed.
Bloodmobile Falls Short
SNA and Circle K gathered 388 pints of blood on the 13th and 14th of February. First time donors
are down. [Photo by Silvia DeGirolamo and Amani HefzallahJ
by Christine Ryan
The second Bloodmobile fell short of its antic-ipated
goal of 500 pints with a total turnout of only
388 during the two-day event.
There were over 230 donors the first day and
"It all ran very smoothly with a constant flow," stat-ed
Tim Martin, President of Circle K who co-sponsored
the event with the Student Nurses' As-sociation.
Mr. Martin had no explanation as to why
the attendance dropped during the second day.
"We were pleased with how the staffing went
over the two days," Martin continued. Reattribut-ed
some of that to the fact that nursing students
were allowed to work off their clinical time through
this project.
When asked why the turnout was low, Martin
attributed it to a type of "midwinter apathy, .plus
a lot of kids went home early (for the three-day
weekend)."
According to the registers, there were very few
first-time donors. This may have been because
of various illnesses around campus during the
winter months. The number of deferrals was about
average and there were very few adverse
reactions.
"The student turnout was good and there were
many walk-ins from the neighboring communi-ties,"
Martin declared. The amount of publicity
outside the campus was increased this year.
The need for blood is a constant battle through-out
the country. In the United States, doctors
prescribe some 12 million transfusions for over
3.5 million people yearly. Doctors are now in the
process of developing a blood test that will screen
out AIDS from donated blood, yet there has never
been a danger of contracting AIDS by donating.