Mirror - Vol. 09, No. 08 - September 12, 1985

              The
FairfieldMIRRORv Volume 9, No. 8 Thursday, September 12, 1985 The Image of Fairfield
Orientation program welcomes all new students
by Lauries Beloin
Over Labor Day weekend, Fairfield students
joined together to welcome the class of 1989.
Orientation 1985, under the direction of Mike
Steed, Donna Riccardi, Mia Maddox, and Re-gina
Scurlock proved to be as successful as in
past years. The commitment of the 257 upper-classmen
who cut short their summer vacations
was evident as they unloaded cars, handed out
freshman packets and explained how to open
mailboxes.
Jeanne Osborn of Student Services has direct-ed
the joint programs of Freshman and Trans-fer
Orientations for the past four years. In
addition, she serves as Judicial Officer for the
University. She explains that the combination
is a natural one. The majority of the work for
Orientation occurs during the summer, while her
judicial duties occupy her time during the school
year.
The work for Orientation began last January.
This year 21 candidates were interviewed by
Jeanne and last year's Freshman Orientation co-chairs.
Meg Geary and John Mancici. After the
decision was made, Donna and Mike then be-gan
interviewing for the twenty sub-chair posi-tions,
also filled by juniors. Orientation
Assistants and committee workers were then
chosen. Although Orientation is traditionally a
junior class event, this year 110 freshman ap-plied
for committee positions, twenty of whom
were chosen. This enthusiasm among the fresh-men
was seen as proof from Jeanne of the im-pact
that Orientation had on them.
Jeanne maintains that the driving force behind
the program is the co-chairs and sub-chairs. She
sees herself mainly as a reference for them on
school policy and financial matters. The students
"design, implement, and carry out the entire pro-gram."
Every year Jeanne attends a national con-ference,
this year in Scottsdale, Arizona, for
fellow Orientation directors. They share new
ideas and trends in student interests. She passed
these ideas on to Donna and Mike, along with
a blank schedule of the three days of Orienta-tion
and the basic information that is available.
The freshman program includes a full sched-ule
for the three day period. On Sunday, the first
day of Orientation, there was a mass and par-ent's
reception, and later a welcome by Father
Kelley and members of Campus Ministry. The
evening ended with a comedy show featuring
three Boston-area comedians. Monday morning
was set aside for small group meetings and tours
of the campus with Orientation Assistants, while
the afternoon featured sports events on Campi-on
field including an obstacle course, egg toss,
volleyball and the greased-pole climb. The up-perclassmen
were victorious in every event. Af-ter
the pole climb, WVOF sponsored a trivia
contest.
Monday night included dancing to the music
of Full House and ice cream from Timothy's.
The theme throughout the program was "Set Sail
to Your Future" and the dance attire was tropical.
Jeanne emphasizes that Orientation is not for
Freshmen alone. It is to prepare all new students,
including transfers and foreign exchange stu-dents.
Transfers arrived on Monday and broke
into their own groups for tours of town and cam-pus.
They also participated in the athletic ac-tivities
and the dance at night.
Orientation prepares the new student both aca-demically
as well as socially. "We want them
to realize that they made the right choice in Fair-field
University," Jeanne said. Schedules were
distributed Monday and the Orientation Assis-tants
went over the abbreviations with the stu-dents.
Tuesday's schedule included departmental
academic meetings and then personal meetings
with advisors. As one Freshman remarked, "It's
a good thing that we have academic meetings
tomorrow (Tuesday). We were beginning to
have too much fun."
After being greeted at Bellarmine Pond, freshmen and their parents were met outside the campus center.
[Photo by Karen Haney]
F.U.S.A. President English
Plans Many Changes
by Gareth Charter
While many of us relaxed during the summer,
Jim English and his F.U.S.A. staff were work-ing
hard on preparations for an activity-filled
year. The best way to find out about these ac-tivities
is through the new F.U.S.A. calendar.
The president feels that these clear, easy-to-read
calendars, available each month, will halt last
year's gripe by many students that they didn't
know what events were going on. To combat
this, the calendar will be disributed all over cam-pus,
plus the beach and townhouses, and will
be available at the F.U.S.A. office.
Diversity is the main ingredient of the features
on the calendar. September 14th's trip to the Big
"E" is an immediate example. Naturally, dances
are scheduled, but Jim English feels that the
bands featured, such as The Stompers, will at-tract
people also. The Ramones and N.R.B.Q.
are unofficially slated right now, but let's be op-timistic.
English added that "if we can't have an
event we'll bring people to events," and thus the
number of trips has been increased from last
year. Comedy will be showcased on the third
Friday of every month and daytime program-ming
will be held every Monday, including Sep-tember
23rd which is blank on this month's
calendar.
The folding of the Film Society last year left
the campus virtually without movies. F.U.S.A
has planned a string of quality movies that will
attract different audiences, in hopes of putting
what English feels is an important part of cam-pus
social life back on its feet. Tickets for these
events will be sold each week behind the altar
in the Campus Center on Tuesday or Wed-nesday
.
F.U.S.A. will not be solely concerned with
staging events this year, though. Jim English
says that "success for us this year will be met
if we motivate more interest, which we feel we
can do by presenting more information and more
ipportunities." Virtually every club is connect-ed
with F.U.S.A. in some way, and thus the or-ganization
is expanding its efforts to improve
the clubs this year, which will in turn improve
F.U.S.A. Last Tuesday's Operation Participa-tion
was the beginning of this process. The goal
in mind is to get each student involved in at least
one activity, and, in the words of the F.U.S.A.
leader, "give each member responsibility so that
he or she is an active member and not just a com-mittee
member." He added that there are enough
places for work to do this.
Jim English and his staff have been working
on many different changes, yet they all have a
common emphasis on you, the student. Whether
or not these changes enable you, the student, to
have a more enjoyable year or not will deter-mine
the fruits of F.U.S.A.'s labor.
Cars poured onto campus, Sunday. [Photo by Karen Haney]
Stag-Her Policies Altered
by Chris Tyler
With the rise in the drinking age in the state
of Connecticut, there have been new policies
adopted with respect to Oakrooms and the Stag-
Her Inn.
According to Jim English, F.U.S.A. presi-dent,
alcohol will not be allowed at such events
as Dogwoods and Harvest. The formerly BYOB
events will be 'dry' with the exception of the Stag-
Her Inn, which will be open and will serve al-coholic
beverages. According to English, the
Stag-Her Inn will operate in a similar manner
as the cash bar at the upstairs events did.
The Stag-Her Inn will also nave icsiiicieii
hours for serving alcohol during the week and
the weekend, but Thursday night alcohol will
be served throughout the evening. On the other
occasions alcohol will be served only between
the hours of 4 and 8 in the afternoon. Other
changes at the Stag-Her Inn include 'dry'
weekends and partitioned evenings of alcohol
sales.
Engl ish also added that F. U. S. A. has planned
a great number of activities for both legal and
non-legal students. Events include trips to Shea
Stadium, and outdoor movies. English hopes that
F.U.S.A.'s move to provide more activities for
all students will be a success.