Mirror - Vol. 12, No. 09 - November 05, 1987

              INSIDE THIS WEEK:
FUSA's Teacher Evaluation^)
MIRRORv The
Fairfield
Volume 12, No. 9 Our Second Decade Thursday, November 5, 1987 The Image of Fairfield
Loeb discusses life with the bomb
Christine Henchar
Staff" Writer
On Thursday evening, October 29,
students and faculty, gathered in the
Gonzaga Auditorium to hear Paul Loeb's
lecture: "Living With the Bomb." The
event was co-sponsored by the Faith, Peace
and Justice Program and the newly organ-ized
Petition for Peace Committee, a divi-sion
of FUSA. Loeb is a commentator and
author ofNuclear Culture andHope in Hard
Times. He visited Fairfield University on
his tour of the nation, which focuses on the
student outlook of the nuclear arms race, and
intends to write about the results of his study
in an upcoming book. After the talk, Loeb
fielded questions from the audience, which
put him in direct contact with Fairfield stu-dents'
concerns on the issue.
Loeb began his lecture by discussing
the three years he spent studying the resi-dents
of Hanford, Washington, a commu-nity
that produced the plutonium for one
quarter of the world's atomic weapons. He
explained that people were generally not
upset by the fact that their livelihood
stemmed from a product that destroyed the
lives of human beings. He added that the
town possessed a strange pride and the plu-tonium
plant was a source of identity. For
example, the high school symbol was a
nuclear mushroom cloud. In addition, Loeb
once heard the motto "Where atoms split,
churches unite." Loeb said in Hanford "life
and death questions are banished, they don't
exist."
Loeb also revealed that the residents
have been brainwashed to believe that their
jobs are good because they advance the aims
of the U.S. government. He indicated that
there was "a split from the very beginning
between reality and perception." He noticed
that people were "interested in machines,
not consequences. Nor were they able to
distinguish between the house of creation
and consequences." Loeb described this
dilemma as an example of a "split in our
culture." He said that such a seperation
makes it "hard to get an overall picture of the
world we live in, or what our place in the
world is."
According to Loeb, this combination
of ignorance and acceptance is apparent in
American culture to varying degrees. He
explained that President Reagan has told
Americans that we need nuclear weapons
for national security so "we continue build-ing
them." He called this an "automatic
passing on of false trust to people who don't
deserve that trust." He used the situation in
Nicaragua to further demon-strate
this point.
Loeb stated that people
have a choice and don't have
to accept the policies of the
President. Loeb said that even
in terms of the nuclear arms
race, "we are given a choice,
which is part of being human,
God cannot stop us from
blowing up the world." Loeb
emphasized that the "choices
for survival are there."
Loeb said that he was
not surprised by the fact that
more than half of Fairfield
students he spoke with be-lieved
that nuclear war would
occur, because that number
corresponded with the re-sponse
he had gotten from
other university students
throughout the country.
However, he was particularly
impressed that a third of the
Fairfield students "felt they could do some-thing
about it" (nuclear arms race). He at-tributed
this fact to the "education Fairfield
students are getting or to that they are a self-selecting
group."
In addition, Loeb stated that the U.S.
must take steps to "reverse the course" of
nuclear arms build up. He indicated that Star
Wars is not the answer because "it is like an
army tank-it is a defensive weapon that
allows the gun to fight more effectively, and
Star Wars is seen as a threat to the Soviets,
an offensive, not defensive weapon." He
said that the U.S. needs to "go to the bargain-ing
table with the USSR." He added that
now was an especially good time to negoti-ate
because Gorbachev has admitted he will
See Loeb, p. 2
Volunteers donate blood
By Claudine Kiffer and PuttinS UP Posters' student
Staff Writer nurses took a mini-course in taking
health histories and blood pres-
The first Blood Drive of the sures- Volunteers filled needed
1987-88 school year was held last Positions as dorm room aides, ru-week...
in :t,henOaikBRoom. S„ponsored ' mour/escorts, tJyCpists and regis- °
by the Red Cross in conjunction trars- The g°al for each blood
with Fairifeld University's Circle drive is set ^the Red Cross-This
K Club and the Student Nurses year's goal was 361 pints. At the
Association, the blood drive took conclusion of the drive, a total of
place on October 28 and 29. Each 312 Pints had been collected. "I
year there are two blood drives think k was definitely a success.
held at Fairfield, in the spring and °f course we would have liked to
r ii reach our goal, but 87% of the way
The chairman of this past is s.tiU excellent. There's always
drive was Kelly Anne Conlisk, next time t0 tr* a8ain'" cor"-
who, along with her helper Jill mented Chairman Kelly Anne.
Steigler, and her co-chairman, Thevastmajorityofthe312
Doreen Bibeau, ran the event. donors were students" "A rea"y
Father William Culler., S.J., had Positive asPect was the 8reat
the position of honorary chairman, number of first time donors'" said
acting as a liaison between the fac- Kelly Anne" A handful of P60^
ulty and blood drive organizers, from the town participated, includ-
The members of Circle K and SNA in8 one man who 8ave hls 138th
put in a lot of their hours to make Pint' A small number of teachers
this event a success. In addition to also donated The Red Cross 1S
recruiting in the Campus Center See Drive, p. 14
1 P—
One of many drops which saved a life, (photo by O'Connor)
Plans for
Arts Center
finalized
By Claudine Kiffer
Staff Writer
The groundbreaking for construction
of the newest building on campus, the Cen-ter
for Performing and Visual Arts, will
begin later in this academic year, though the
actual date has not yet been set.
On Wednesday evening, Oct. 28,
"Fairfield Town Planning and Zoning
Commission voted 7-0 to permit the Uni-versity
to construct the Center," stated
Murray Farber, Director of Public Relations
at Fairfield. The University will now begin
reviewing bids from contractors.
A combination performing theater
and gallery, the center will be located south
of Nyselius Library and just off the new
road. According to the University Provost
Dr. John Barone, the new building, which
has been in the planning and fundraising
stages for the past couple of years, will cover
an area of 46,000 square feet. Adjacent to
this will be a parking lot with 152 spaces.
The Center for the Performing and
Visual Arts, designed by Fletcher Th-ompson,
Inc., Bridgeport architects, is to be
a multi-faceted building. It will consist
largely of a performing theater and a gallery.
The theater will seat as many as 754 people.
The new theater will have the traditional
proscenium stage, that will be 40 feet wide.
In addition, there will be an electri-cally
operated moveable thrust, a theater
laboratory , dressing rooms, and auxiliary
spaces for scenery creation and storage.
Dance, theater, concerts and lectures are
some of the events the Center will accomo-date.
The 2000 square foot gallery section
will be the ideal site for art exhibits.
According to Dr. Barone, "Upon
completion, the Center for the Performing
and Visual Arts will be a better house for the
productions the University can do now, plus
new horizons will be opened for the cultural
future of Fairfield." Dr. Barone affirmed
that the theater will not be open to use by
commercial groups, but it may be rented to
non-profit organizations.
Dr. Barone hopes that the creation of
the Center will establish a cultural focus that
Fairfield University has been lacking.
"Students need to develop their cultural
lives and this will provide many opportuni-ties
to do so." The student attendance at
functions such as the Oak Room concerts
has been quite low in the past.
"Ideally the cultural sterility that this
campus has become a victim to will be
somewhat erased by increased attendance at
performances." The increased cultural
awareness on campus would bring about
greater diversity for Fine Arts majors. The
administration has already began prelimi-nary
planning for a future Fine Arts, Com-munications,
and Media Center Building.