Mirror - Vol. 10, No. 27 - March 05, 1987

              The
FairfieldMIRRORv Volume 10, No. 26 Our Tenth Year Thursday, March 5, 1987 The Image of Fairfield
NEVER SAY DIE
STAGS UPSETION A TO CAPTURE SECOND MAAC CROWN
By Paul Fabbri
Sports Editor
He has played the majority of his
four year career in the shadow of others.
For three years he was the "other guard"
alongside Fairfield scoring king Tony
George. This year when the Stags needed
a big bucket Jeff Gromos got the ball.
That this very gifted athlete even plays
for the Fairfield is a quirk of fate. After a
brief stint at UMass, he transferred here
for personal reasons. He has treated
Alumni Hall crowds to more than it
share of breathtaking moments, but he
has never been "the Man". That is until
now. For when Mitch Buoaguro sent
out for a late night miracle last Monday,
an entire conference and 5,701 fans found
out what they may have secretly doubted
for so long.
A.J. Wynder delivers.
The slick shooting senior guard
hit a buzzer beating, 18-foot jump shot
at the end of regulation to force overtime,
as the Cinderella Fairfield Stags
eventually beat Iona 73-70 to concludejin
improbable, unbelievable, three day MAAC^
miracle.
"We are here to show people that
we are not the seventh place team
in the league." -A.J. Wynder
cont. on pg. 12 Victory is ours. Coach Mitch Bounuguro holds the MAAC Crown aloft.
[Photo by Kevin Wolfthal]
COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT FACES TRANSITION
By John Courtmanche
Executive Editor
Today at 5 p.m., Undergraduate
Communications students will meet in
Bannow's third-floor faculty lounge to
discuss the future of a department in
transition. Many students seeking -a
degree in Communications are concerned
with the recent changes in the
Undergraduate program.
Jennifer Chianese, a junior
Communications major, has acted as
student representative in the organization
of this important meeting.
"If the students are one voice, and
the school sees we are serious, we can
bring about changes," says Chianese.
Organizational problems have
arisen this year due to the absence of a
full-time department director. Last year's
Director, Fr. Francis X. McFarland, was
never officially replaced. Dr. Vincent M.
Murphy, Associate Dean of the College
of Arts & Sciences, has assumed the role
of Acting Director only for this year.
"A meeting was held about a month
ago with Dr. Murphy," says Chianese; to
discuss student concerns. "Forty students
attended, but we received no answers."
Chianese says the problem is no one's
really in charge of the program.
Today's meeting will feature Dr.
Mark C. Cox and Dr. M. SallyAnne
Ryan, who were hired by the College of
Arts & Sciences to serve as
Communications professors next year.
Dr. Cox will serve also as Director of the
department.
There is presently only one full-time
professor in the Undergraduate
Communications Department, Mr.
Joseph Schad, who will leave after this
year to pursue personal educational goals.
Mr. Schad says the department is in a
period of transition, between goals for
the program when it was first established
and goals for the future. He says the
future must hold a balance between
theory and practical concerns
(production).
"At this meeting, students will
understand where the Communication
Major is going," says Schad.
Also at this afternoon's meeting,
Jennifer Chianese will discuss plans to
form a Communications Club.
BLACK SCHOLAR VISITS CAMPUS
Dr. Houston A. Baker, literary
authority and Albert M. Greenfield
Professor of Human Relations at the
University of Pennsylvania, will speak at
Fairfield University as part of the Visiting
Black Scholars Program, Wednesday,
March 18 in the Campus Center Oak
Room. He will speak on "Ideology,
Social Science and the Blues," beginning
at 8 p.m.
The Black Scholars Program was
launched last fall as part of the
university's on-going mission to "educate its
students to be socially aware and morally
responsible," according to the Rev. Thomas
Savage, S.J., assistant academic vice-president
and chairperson of the visiting
Black Scholars Committee. He added that
each scholar spends two days on campus to
teach classes, meet with students and
deliver a public lecture. Dr. Baker is the
program's third scholar to visit the Fairfield
campus.
In addition to his lecture. Dr. Baker
will share with Fairfield students his
expertise on American literature. He is
the author of several articles, books of
poetry and an editor of poetry anthologies.
Dr. Baker, a graduate" of Howard
University, earned his Ph.D. from the
University of California at Los Angeles
in 1968. He has taught as an assistant
professor of English at Yale University;
a professor of English at the University
of Virginia; and as the Director of Afro-
American Studies and professor of
English at the University of
Pennsylvania.
SNA and Circle Key directed another successful Blood Drive last week.
[Photo by Anbrea Whitehouse]
Deedon Opposes Death Penalty
Dr. Houston Baker
By Lisa Boyne
On Monday March 2, Steve Deedon gave
a lecture on the death Penalty in the United
States in the Bannow faculty lounge.The
lectuer was sponsored by the Fairfield
Amnesty chapter. Deedon is a representa-tive
of Amnesty Internationals worldwide
campaign against the death penalty and has
served as a representative of Fairfield
county for the past four years.
Amnesty International, the human rights
organization, has launched its most ambi-tious
campaign to stop the death penalty. In
a study on the death penalty during the past
ten years, Amnesty found the death penalty
to be arbitrary and racially biased and that
factors, including local politics, money,
race, and where a crime occured could play
a more decisive role in who gets sentenced
to death, than the crime itself.
A Public opinion poll conducted for
Amnesty International in Florida in 1985
reported that 70% surveyed favored life
imprisonment without parole using
offenders wages for restitution, rather than
the death penalty. Only 39% of those sur-veyed
said they favored the death penalty.
Deedon noted some of the attitudes of
those who favor including those who ask,
"Why should we use taxpayers money to
keep criminals in prison." Deedon noted the
capitalistic notion of putting a price tag on
human life citing in actual dollars than it
costs two and a half times more to try a
death penalty case, than for a prisoner to
spend a life sentence in jail. This sum
ammounted to 1.8 million dollars per death
row case.
Amnesty International is conducting a
campaign to abolish the death penalty in
Connecticut, including a petition drive,
public information efforts, and meetings
with state authorities. During the past three
years, 1984-86, there has been an average
of one execution every 19 days and the last
person executed in Connecticut was in
1960.