Mirror - Vol. 09, No. 11 - October 03, 1985

              The
FairfieldMIRRORY Volume 9, No. 11 Thursday, October 3, 1985 The Image of Fairfield
Long range plan Submitted to trustees
The board of trustees of Fairfield Univer-sity
today began considering a two-year
study that proposes to strengthen the arts
program by building a complex that would
contain a theater and gallery as well as a
fine arts and communications arts building
containing classrooms, faculty offices and
studios. Cost of each building is estimated
at $5 million. In addition, the study calls
for the construction of a $2 million Cam-pus
Minstry Center that would include a
chapel to enhance Fairfield's Jesuit and
Catholic traditions.
Another major area proposes raising $5
million to provide more financial aid to stu-dents
to continue to maintain the quality and
number of the applicants in spite of the
reduction of 18-year olds in the nation.
In May, 1983, the Rev. Aloysius P. Kel-ley,
S.J., university president, expressed
the need to develop a long range plan to im-plement
Fairfield's commitment to educa-tional
excellence and the Jesuit humanistic
tradition. A university-wide committee was
formed for six faculty, six administrators
and two students who submitted to Father
Kelley and the trustees a report containing
some 70 recommendations, some of which
involve no new costs and others that may
cost up to $5 million.
In submitting the report to the trustees,
Father Kelley stressed that the planning
committee did not recommend priorities,
deadlines nor ways to raise necessary funds.
The report proposes steps to meet Fair-field's
concerns for the Jesuit and Catholic
nature of the university; the academic life;
the quality of student life; and the institu-tional
resources.
In addition to the arts center and the build-ing
for instruction in communication and
fine arts, the report urged enriching the aca-demic
program by establishing an inter-departmental
committee to evaluate the
quality of the teaching of the core curricu-lum
and to make recommendations for pos-sible
content changes. At Fairfield, all
students in the College of Arts and Sciences,
School of Business and School of Nursing
are required to complete a core curriculum
of liberal arts classes as well as courses in
their own major area of study.
Other academic recommendations pro-pose
promoting faculty and student partic-ipation
in programs to be offered through
the Humanities Endowment Fund. Fairfield
has received a $250,000 challenge grant
from the National Endowment for the Hu-manities
and is in the process of raising
$750,000 to create a million dollar fund to
improve the teaching of the humanities.
Explaining the concern for the teaching
of the humanities, the report commented,
"Jesuit education has traditionally empha-
WVOF to be 100 WATTS
by Gareth Charter
WVOF, the campus radio staton, has
purchased the necessary equipment so that
it may transmit at 100 watts come Novem-ber
first. "Once the equipment gets here it's
gonna take four days to put it in," said the
undergraduate Station Manager, Sean
O'Leary. The equipment is being put
together and installed by "Radio Systems"
of Pennsylvania. O'Leary added that, "Oc-tober
15th it should be here, and I think all
the problems should be ironed out by
November first," noting such things as
sound-proofing, wiring and furniture as
possible hassles. O'Leary noted that once
the station is transmitting at 100 watts, it
should reach Trumbull, Norwalk, and
Stratford.
Programming has been scrutinized care-fully,
in light of the wattage jump. O'Leary
explained that, "the station has to be a lot
more professional down there because a lot
more legal requirements are placed on a 100
watt station over a 10 watt station. "We al-ready
made the changes over the summer
so that it'd be an easy transition come 100
watts time." Program schedules are being
printed including highlights such as nighlty
jazz, clasical and public affair programs,,
while at the same time maintaining the new
music roots. Sportswise, WVOF will cover
all men's basketball, all women's home
basketball, most hockey not conflicting with
basketball and prep football games.
O'Leary said,"We'll be the only station in
the area carrying Stag basketball, and we're
going to do a study of exactly what people
want. We'd really like to get some audience
input."
sized the personal concern of faculty for stu-dents,
a rigorous intellectual ideal, stressing
clarity of thought and expression and the
importance of the humanities (theology,
philosophy, the arts, literature and lan-guage)
in any truly liberal education."
Other proposals include improving
faculty salaries and grants for research;
studying the need for a graduate program
in nursing; revising the curriculum in the
Graduate School of Corporate and Politi-cal
Communication; expanding the Honors
Program for undergraduates; and broaden-ing
sevices for adult students.
In addition to building the new Campus
Ministry Center, the planning committee
proposed a renewed commitment to the
university's Jesuit heritage by endowing a
Continued on page 2
The visible effects of Gloria's wrath [Photo by Karen Haney]
Playwright to receive award
Gloria inconveniences travelers as well as taking power from homes, [Photo by Karen Haney]
by Ann Sullivan
Athol Fugard, distinguished actor,direc-tor,
and playwright will receive the Bellar-mine
Medal of Honor on Sunday, October
27. Reverend Aloysius P. Kelley will
present the award at 3 p.m. in the Oakroom.
The Bellarmine Medal of Honor is be-stowed
by the President of Fairfield Univer-sity
upon those whom have been recognized
as "educators in the highest sense, those
who by their humanizing example, have
brought enlightenment and inspiration to
the world."
The men who receive this award have up-held
the values of Fairfield University and
St. Robert Bellarmine. On October 3, 1979
the Bellarmine Medal was first awarded to
Russian Alexander Ginzburg for his
courage and human rights activities. John
J. Sullivan, who served as first selectman
of the Town of Fairfield was awarded the
Bellarmine Medal in 1983. Sullivan signifi-cantly
helped Fairfield University in its
growth and has known and worked with ev-ery
President of the University. The Bel-larmine
Medal honored him for his lifetime
of service.
Father Kelley invited Athol Fugard to ac-cept
the Bellarmine Medal. Fugard gra-ciously
accepted the invitation. "I am deeply
honored at Fairfield at Fairfield Universi-ty's
response to my work, and humbly agree
to accept," he wrote in a letter to Fathe Kel-ley.
Fugard added, "I am looking forward
most keenly to my visit to Fairfield
University."
Fugard is a native of South Africa, near
Port Elizabeth. His plays deal with the
search for human dignity, and are inspired
by the current apartheid system in South
Africa. His plays show how a man loses his
humanity, how he deals with the hopeless-ness
of the system.
The apartheid system doesn't allow so-cial
contact between blacks and whites.
Blacks, though they compose the majority
ofthe population, have no vote, are not per-mitted
to live in white areas, and may not
travel without a passbook. If they work in
a white neighborhood, they must be out of
that area at a certain time each night. Since
Fugard's plays involve both blacks and
whites, lhe risks getting thrown into prison
for working together with blacks to stage
his works. Many of Fugard's plays were
banned in South Africa. In 1970, Fugard's
passport was confiscated for four years
when he tried to visit the United States for
the premiere of his play "Boesman and
Lena." The stars of another of his plays,
"Sizwe Banzi is Dead", which attacked
legalized oppression, were arrested in
1972.
Fugard's mail is opened by the govern-ment
and his home phone is tapped, but still
he refuses to leave his home, and he con-tinues
his work.
On Monday, October 7, Fugard will per-form
in his play "The Blood Knot" at Yale
Repertory Theatre. He will also direct and
produce this play. Fairfield University has
coordinated a bus to Yale for Fugard's per-formance.
It will leave the campus center
at 6:30 and the play will begin at 8 p.m.
Tickets are six dollars and can be picked -
up in Egea Logans' office, Canisius 214.
Tickets for the October 27 ceremony in
which Fugard will receive the Bellarmine
Medal are free, and can be picked up at the
Office of Special Events, 209 Bellarmine
Hall.