Mirror - Vol. 09, No. 12 - October 10, 1985

              The
FairfieldMIRRORY
Volume 9, No. 12 Thursday, October 10, 1985 The Image of Fairfield
Board of trustees meet
by Kathryn King
At the Board of Trustees meeting, three
key issues were taken care of. Six new
trustees were elected, and a committee was
formed to studey investments in South Afri-ca.
The chairman of the board, L. William
Miles, will be releasing a statement on what
action was taken on the long range plan for
the university.
According to Murray Farber, director of
public relations, "A special committee was
appointed with Miles in charge. They will
develop a policy in regard to investing in
companies that do business in South
Africa."
This committee will also have the power
to determine if any companies in which
Fairfield already invested have business in
South Africa. About six million dollars is
invested in corporate bonds. "About half of
this is in large companies that might do bus-iness
in South Africa."
The board elected six new trustees: Ja-son
Robards, an actor, who is now being
praised for his work on "The Iceman
Cometh" on Broadway was elected to the
Board. He is also known now for appear-ing
in the television movie,"Long Hot Sum-mer."
He also appeared in "The Day After"
about the aftermath of a nuclear attack. He
received an honorary doctor of letters from
Fairfield in 1982.
Chairman and Chief executive officer of
the Burger King Corporation, J. Jeffrey
Campbell was elected. He is a 1965 gradu-
Continued on page 2
'C average required for aid
College students may have to maintain a "C"
average in the future in order to get federal
financial aid.
The grade requirement is just one change
in the aid system Congress is now debating
as it tries to pass the Higher Education
Reauthorization Act of 1985.
The grade measure, proposed by sena-tors
Don Nickles (R-Ok) and Clairborne
Pell (D-R.L), has been proposed unsuccess-fully
before.
But chances for its passage may be good
this time, sources say, because legislators
are looking for relatively painless ways to
cut the federal budget and because of re-cent
publicity about bad students who get
financial aid.
Currently, students only must be in good
standing and make "satisfactory academic
progress" toward a degree to receive fed-eral
aid.
"Unfortunatley," Nickles said during a
hearing earlier this month, "there have been
problems with this open-ended definition.
Because of this open-ended opportunity
for abuse, I believe we need to have a more
specific standard."
Nickles originally advanced this idea af-ter
a 1981 audit found nearly 20 percent of
the students who got aid had less that a "C"
average. Ten percent had a cumulative
GPA under 1.5.
Congress also is debating a bill to let
graduate students, who generally face
higher education costs than undergrads,
borrow more federally-guaranteed loan
money and pay it backoyer a longer peri-od
of time.
The reauthorization process, which ef-fectively
sets federal higher education poli-cies
for the ensuing five years, usually
triggers a slew of proposals that never be-come
law.
But of federal loan programs are to be
changed, the changes will first emerge dur-ing
these congressional review sessions.
The grading bill would put aid recipients
whose grades fall below 2.0 on probation
for a term.
If the student doesn't improve by the end
of the probation period, he or she will be
denied federal aid.
Administrators would be empowered,
however, to extend the probation period for
hardship cases, such as extended illness.
The new break for graduate students who
want a Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL)
program came up during a House subcom-mittee
hearing.
Georgetown University law school dean
John Kramer, speaking for a coalition of
law school associations, said grad students
needed the break.
"Over time, middles class students in par-ticular
are just not going to be able to af-ford
a graduate education,"Kramer warns.
Continued on page 3
Students on town counci
Fairfield University students, Dave
Smith and Gina Zarlengo, were recently ap-pointed
to represent the University to vari-ous
Fairfield town councils in an effort to
involve students in town activities and is-sues,
according to FUSA Director of Stu-dent
Services, Tom Kushner.
Senior Dave Smith, an Economics major
from West Hartford, CT., took an active
part in his new role as representative to the
Fairfield Town Committeee for Civil Pre
paredness this past weekend with hur-ricane
"Gloria."
Dave was involved along with town
members and University Fire Marshall
Henry Stevens in deciding the course of ac-tion
the Committee was going to take in
evacuating the beach and low-lying areas
the day Gloria hit. In an effort to keep the
students up-to-date Dave remained in cons-tant
contact with Student Services Division
and Committee throughout the storm.
When asked about his involvement with
the town, Dave Smith replied, "I'm very
pleased to be working with Capt. Harry Ac-kley
of the Fire Dept. and if the prepara-tions
we were involved with for Gloria is
indicative of how the rest of the year is go-ing
to go. . .I'll be content. It's important
for the students to involve themselves with
the town to foster good relations and to be
able to interface together."
In an effort to further smooth relations
with the beach community and the students
living on Fairfield Beach Road, Kushner,
at the urging of Fairfield Beach Road As-sociation
president, Laurel Palmieri, ap-pointed
Senior Gina Zarlengo to represent
the university to that organization.
Zarlengo, a Marketing/Info Systems
major from Springfield, Mass., will begin
working with the Road Association and
coordinate beach efforts to provide for good
relations. She will also be responsible to
bring student concerns to the ears of beach
residents and realtors while acting as FU-SA's
direct liason to the Road Association,
relations.
Lucas discusses investments [Photo by Jamie Given]
Few investments in S. Africa
by Kathryn King
"No one is questioning the atrocities that
are going on in South Africa. It's a ques-tion
of trying to resolve the conflict," said
William J. Lucas, vice president of finance.
He estimates that only thirty percent of Fair-field
University't endowment is invested in
companies that do business in South Africa.
He said that approximately forty percent
of the University's investment is in govern-ment
bonds and about sixty percent is in
corporate bonds. Of this, thirty percent, at
the most, could be invested in companies
who have business dealings in South Afri-ca.
"We'll have to fine tune that and deter-mine
specifically."
Any excess in cash which is "more than
you need for the day" is either invested in
a bank CD or in a money market fund, ac-cording
to Lucas. The University uses a
special money market fund for colleges or
universities called the Common Fund.
These funds are short term and will dimin-ish
as the money is paid out.
The rest of the endowment fund is invest-ed
in medium term bonds of ten to twenty
years. The University's money is invested
in corporate, treasury or government
bonds. "These are the major ones we have
now," said Lucas. A sub-committee of the
Board of Trustees choose the investments
for the endowment fund.
Some of the companies the university in-vests
in may do business in South Africa.
One way to promote social change in South
Africa that people are advocating is dives-titure.
"It's complex. There are pros and
cons," said Lucas. If divestiture was proven
to be the way to deal with South Africa,
"everyone would be doing it." Divestiture
is not the only solution.
It is up to the Board of Trustees to decide
what to do about the situation. "It's not push-ing
everything to them. They are the
governing board of the University. Since
the trustees make the investment policy,
they would be the source of any policy we'd
carry out,"said Lucas.
Before the school makes any decisions
about divestiture, the economic impact of
divestiture in other schools would have to
be reviewed. According to an article in the
New Haven Register, Yale decided that
selling 350 million holdings would be a
"meaningless gesture" and would only harm
their portfolio.
So much work and effort has gone into
the endowment fund, that the University
would have to be careful with anything it
does, if it decides to do anything. If the
school decided to make the symbolic
gesture of divestiture, it would probably
have to be implemented over a number of
years. "This is all hypothetical," said Lucas.
FUSA held a general meeting last week to encourage more participation and organization
of the student body. /™°'° * Andrea Wh„ehouse]