Mirror - Vol. 13, No. 14b - February 16, 1989

              The
Fairfield
Volume 13, No. 14MRRORV Our Second Decade Thursday, February 16, 1989 "A Thousand Points of Light"
DiDonato Elected FUSA President
Garners 53% of Popular Vote
AnnMarie Puckhaber
News Editor
The Fairfield University
Student Association's (FUSA)
presidential race came to a finish
on Tuesday, February 14 with the
victory of Warren DiDonato.
One hundred and nine-teen
votes separated DiDonato and
his main opponent Sean Leyden.
The two received 486 votes and
367 votes, respectively. Laura
Keenan, a write-in candidate, re-ceived
61 votes.
DiDonato said that he was
"surprised" by the results of the
election. He added that he plans to
"keep FUSA friendly" and that he
will "not forget the ideas given by
people along the campaign trail."
One of the first things
DiDonato says he is going to do is
"get a haircut," since he has not
had time the last few weeks. Then
he intends to "re-evaluate the in-ternal
structure" of FUSA. Di-
Donato hopes to introduce some
new cabinet positions such as
Info Systems, which would intro-duce
every cabinet member to the
Macintosh in the FUSA office and
produce the FUSA Newsletter.
DiDonato would also like to sepa-rate
student services and do away
with the position of Executive
Director, which he feels has "no
direct responsibilities."
After the election, Ley-den
said that he "knows Warren
will do a greatjob." Leyden hopes
to obtain one of the vice presiden-tial
positions. Molly O'Brien, one
of DiDonato's opponents in the
primary, added that she is "behind
him (Warren) all the way."
DiDonato ,also a good
friend of Leyden, , said that the
election brought them closer to-gether.
He said that that is "what
FUSA is all about."
Mark Dietz, a member of
the election commission, called it
an "interesting race." He was
pleased to have five original presi-dential
candidates because he feels
it gave the students "more of a
choice." With DiDonato as the
next FUSA president, Dietz thinks
"FUSA's in for a good year."
DiDonato will be select-ing
his three vice presidents this
week and all four will attend the
national convention in Tennessee
this Sunday. The cabinet will also
be selected during the next week or
two. The new FUSA president and
cabinet will take office on April 1.
Warren DiDonato Photo: R. Nunziante
Candidates Debate Future FUSA Issues
Laura Ann Frauenhofer
Staff Writer
OnFebruary 9, The Mirror
hosted the FUSA Presidential
Debate for the candidates, Warren
DiDonato and Sean Leyden, at 5:30
in the Campus Center. The candi-dates
were questioned by Ric
Brown, Sports Editor, Lynn Ann
Casey, Assistant Editor, and
AnnMarie Puckhaber, News Edi-tor.
The event was moderated by
Joseph C. DeVito, Editor-in-Chief.
In their opening remarks,
Warren and Sean both focused on
their past experiences in dealing
with student issues and events, as
well as outlined their goals for
office.
Ifelected, DiDonato's plans
include distributing a weekly
FUSA newsletter, which would
inform students about FUSA's
activities and the University's
administration. He said that if
elected, he "would not sit back and
take things at face value." He
wants to promote a "more relaxed,
friendly atmosphere" for FUSA
members.
Leyden's plans include
having open FUSA meetings and
conducting more students polls,
such as the recent one for May
Day. Leyden feels that there is "a
lot ofredundant events" and there-fore
he wants to start new events to
gain student interest.
When asked the question
"What qualities set you apart from
your opponent?" DiDonato re-plied
that "once I get going, I get
revved-up." He focused on his
intense dedication to getting things
done and obtaining the results stu-dents
want." Leyden replied that
his best quality is his ability to
"look at all the different aspects of
things and to be able to keep an
open eye." He believes that be-cause
he has worked with many
people, he has grown to under-stand
many different opinions.
In response to the question
concerning what he would do to
improve communication between
FUSA and the various student
clubs, DiDonato said that he feels
that the recent passing ofthe refer-endum
to restructure the legisla-ture
is "dynamite," and will be one
way to solve the problem. Di-
Donato believes that other solu-tions
include the distribution of a
FUSA newsletter; sponsoring a
leadership workshop for legisla-ture
members; and the creation of
ahandbook outlining specific goals
for the legislature.
Leyden feels that the pass-ing
of the referendum proves that
communication between FUSA
and students is already improving
and that "the problem is in the
midst of being solved." He would
like to have a "Presidents' Meet-ing,"
which would be an open fo-rum
for the Presidents of FUSA,
theLegislatulBOro|f?lubs. In a
forum setting, the Presidents could
voice their opinions and as a result,
there would be a better understand-ing
"of what the clubs need from
FUSA and what FUSA needs from
the clubs."
In response to the question
concerning changing and improv-ing
the registration system, Di-
Donato feels that "registration
should be a top priority along with
Sellers' food." He says that the
"lottery doesn't benefit all" and as
a solution he proposes a "one time
registration." This system would
allow students to arrange their
schedules on one day, which would
be determined by class year. He
believes that a school of our size
could handle such a registration
process, and "that we should use
our school size to our advantage."
Leyden expressed his con-cern
that some courses which are
listed in the course booklet are not
offered on a regular sbasis. He
would like to see a better rotation
of courses implemented. "We
should be able to take the classes
we want, and should not have to
worry about fulfulling our majors,"
said Leyden. He challenged Di-
Donato's "one time registration"
proposal because he is "not sure
about the fairness of it for the
underclass students."
In his closing remarks,
DiDonato urged students to look at
his experience and "to pick a Presi-dent
who you think is going to
work for you." Leyden said that if
elected he would like to continue
his "working relationship with
administrators to bring about the
type ofresponse students are look-ing
for."
Healy Analyzes Amnesty International's Call for Justice
■■:■;■.:■;.,.;..:.;.;:.
John C. Healy PR Photo
Tom Rhatigan
Staff Writer
How many people here at
Fairfield know that one third of all
present-day governments torture
people every day? How many
know that one half of all govern-ments
in the United Nations con-tain
political prisoners? How many
know that, in China, thousands of
people who stand up for democ-racy
are killed or just never heard
from again? How many know that
in Central America, in the past ten
years, there have been about one
million people tortured or killed?
The list goes on.
In commemoration of the
40th anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the
Executive Director of Amnesty
International, Jack Healy, gave a
lecture last Tuesday on the topic,
"Human Rights in the Eighties."
Healy is also the official spokes-man
for Amnesty International
U.S.A.
Healy began his lecture by
stating many startling statistics
about the countries who torture,
imprison, and kill men, women,
and children for their beliefs, sex,
color, language, or religion. With
this, he discussed the lack ofhuman
rights in our world. "Freedom is a
responsibility," he stated. "We
demand rights from our govern-ment,
we should not have to beg
for them. That is what human
rights are about."
He asked the audience what
could be done to help. "We could
all do something for human rights,"
he added. "I want everyone on the
side of human rights, that is, the
side of the people against violent
governments who have no right to
destroy, to kill, or to torture."
Healy spoke of how letter-writing
campaigns have released
thousands of prisoners, and that it
is up to us to continue to provide
high hopes for these people.
Continuing along the same
line, he spoke out against the death
penalty in the U.S. He said the
American interest in the death
penalty is not only wrong in its
basic beliefs, but he suggests it has
been used against the poor and the
blacks. "Many countries imitate
us; imagine what our world would
be like if every country started
killing their own citizens," Healy
said. "This is not a message of
morality and decency."
Improvements have been
made, however, in some countries.
Places like Brazil, Haiti, and the
Philippines have improved to some
extent in the quest forjustice. Even
in the U.S.S.R., Gorbachev has
promised improvement. "We'll
see," Healy said.
"The struggle of human
rights is about people. We must
protect ourselves with or without
government. We have no choice.
People should not have to suffer."
He concluded his lecture by quot-ing
a line from "Biko," a human
rights song by Peter Gabriel: "'You
can blow out a candle, but you
cannot put out the fire / Watch the
flame begin to catch, the winds
will blow it higher.'"