Mirror - Vol. 14, No. 03 - September 28, 1989

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 14, No. 3 Our Second Decade Thursday, September 28, 1989 The Image of Fairfield
$25 Fine Instituted By University
40-50 Students Written-up Last Weekend
Lynn Ann Casey
Editor in Chief
A policy which charges a
$25 fine for all alcohol-related
write-ups has been instituted by
the administration in order to in-crease
the effectivenesss of the
judicial system at Fairfield Uni-versity.
According to Jeanne
DiMuzio, Judicial Officer, the
"disciplinary warning has been
removed as the first sanction
against alcohol offenses." Last
year, when a student was written
up for an alcohol-related violation
a disciplinary warning was issued
to students. Upon a second write-up,
a letter was sent home to par-ents
and the student was placed on
probation.
Now, a student will re-ceive
a fine after committing a first
offense.
Each year, DiMuzio said,
the University "evaluates the ef-fectiveness
ofthe judicial system."
They carefully review past poli-cies,
conduct studeies, and con-sider
how comparable universities
handle their judicial porblems.
During their annual re-view
last May, administrators con-cluded
that the $25 fine would
make the system more effective in
preventing alcohol-related viola-tions.
In general, the University
takes a preventative approach
toward violations. According to
DiMuzio, they are "pro active, nor
reactive." Their ultimate goal is a
safe campus.
The fine will be charged
to those students who are in viola-tion
of the policy stated under
"Alcoholic Beverages" in the Rules
and Regulations section of the
Student Handbook. This policy
prohibits possession of alcohol by
minors and includes those who are
legal but carry open containers on
University grounds.
On Friday, September 15
and Saturday, September 16, 40-
55 students were written up for
violations of this policy by Secu-rity,
RA's and Head Residents and
consequently charged $25. The
majority of these students came
from lower campus, DiMuzio said
and were "carousing and looking
for social activity."
DiMuzio maintains that,
despite this recent wave of activ-ity,
there are still a relatively small
number of student entering the
judicial system.
One of the biggest prob-lems
resulting in write-ups are the
waves of dorm residents coming
up to the townhouses. This, Di-
Muzio said, "is a challenge to the
townhouse residents."
"It is a privilege to live up
there in a community, but there are
responsibilities atttached to that,"
said Pat Rombalski, Assistant
Director of Students Residences.
The money collected by
the fines will go back into-pro-gramming,
according to Rombal-ski.
It will go into a fund dedicated
toward holding "non-alcohol
functions"for students. The Office
of Student Residences is presently
planning the programs that will
take place.
Students who feel they
have been fined unfairly do have
the opportunity to appeal the fine
in Student Court.
Plans For FUSA Concert Fall Through
Tom Rhatigan
Assistant News Editor
The hopes of having a
fall concert were crushed this week
when the rock group Squeeze
passed up an offer to play at Fair-field
due to scheduling problems.
FUSA began trying to
book a band for the fall semester
back in May, according to Warren
DiDonato, FUSA President. "We
wanted to get a major concert that
everyone would like," he said. "But
due to the time constraint and our
budget there will be no band for the
fall semester," he said.
The first bandFUSAtried
for was 10,000 Maniacs. The
money was right, but FUSA and
the group's agent could not get
together on a date, DiDonato said.
Harvest Weekend was out because
10,000 Maniacs will be touring in
Europe until Thanksgiving.
Due to conflicts with the
basketball season, the only week-end
available was the weekend of
December 8. Usually there is no
problem booking a non-athletic
event in Alumni Hall if there is no
game, but there was a conflict with
this date, DiDonato said.
The community of Fair-field
has Alumni Hall that night for
the celebration ofFairfield's 350th
anniversary. The town of Fairfield
made reservations to have Alumni
Hall that night 18 months ago.
The question of student
priority to their own facilities now
comes to light. When asked about
that, DiDonato said, "I feel the
students should get first priority,
but wejust could not get the sched-ules
right."
The quest continued by
looking for other bands that were
touring. Groups like The Alarm,
The Outfield, and Psychedelic Furs
were all possibilities. "We came
close to getting The Alarm for
November 11th," DiDonato said.
"Everything was all set, but then
they pulled out."
One factor that plays a
great role in getting a band is the
budget.
FUSA's budget allowed
them to spend in the range of
$40,000 for a band. FUSA was
willing to lose about $10,000. Rock
singers like Richard Marx and Don
Henley were touring but their prices
were too high.
FUSA's last attempt to
get a concert for November 11th
came with Squeeze. The date was
open, the price was right, and it got
immediate legislature approval,
DiDonato said. But just before the
deal was set, the band decided not
to come up. Szueeze is playing at
Madison Square Garden the night
before, and it would be difficult to
get to Fairfield and get everything
organized in less than a day.
As far as a concert goes,
DiDonato said, "I guarantee we
will have a major concert in the
Spring. We will have a larger
budget and we should know soon
what is going to happen."
DiDonato did promise
last year a major concert each
semester. He said this promise
will be "fulfilled by a comedian in
the fall and a major concert in the
spring."
FUSA is planning to have
a big name comedian or three or
four smaller name comedians for
Harvest Weekend.
"Either way, we will have
a major event for Harvest Week-end,"
DiDonato said.
Parking Problems Persist On Campus
Laura Ann Frauenhofer
Staff writer
Parking on campus has
always been a problem at Fair-field,
but University officials say
parking will not be increased. In-stead
emphasis is being placed on
Fairfield as a pedestrian campus.
The Parking and Traffic
Regulations brochure which the
University's Security Department
publishes states, "All persons
operating a motor vehicle on cam-pus
roads should recognize that
Fairfield University is a pedestrian
community and that pedestrians
have the right of way."
Glen Griffin, Assistant
Director of the Security Depart-ment,
explains that Fairfield Uni-versity
wants to have a peripheral
traffic system so that the Univer-sity
will become a pedestrian
campus where students are encour-aged
to walk or take the shuttle.
The road between Cani-sius
and the Campus Center is now
permanently closed, forcing traf-fic
to take a circular route around
campus. Also, a new road was
installed between the Rec Plex and
Fairfield Prep's Berchmans Hall
to ease this flow of traffic.
No new additional park-ing
spaces have been created on
campus, and for now, Griffin said,
it is not probable that any will be
created in the near future.
- One obstacle preventing
the creation of more parking lots is
that the University must have the
approval from the Town of Fair-field's
Zoning Board. Griffin
explains that the Board's decision
depends on whether or not there is
a potential for an increase in traffic
on campus. "Most students don't
understand that it is a more com-plicated
process than just paving
blacktop," says Griffin.
Griffin said he believes
that many students have problems
with parking because they do not
take the time to read the regula-tions
brochure which is given to
them at the time of parking regis-tration.
He also suggests that
continued page 2
Campion I
Divided
Due To
Dorm
Damage
AnnMarie Puckhaber
News Editor
Students expecting to
return to Campion I to reside for
the 1989-90 school year were split
up this summer and assigned to
different dormitories due to the
high number ofjudicial cases from
the floor last year.
The decision to divide up
the students on that floor was made
by the administration after it evalu-ated
the damage, the number of
write-ups, and the resident advi-sor's
report from the floor, accord-ing
to Patrick Rombalski, Assis-tant
Director of Student Resi-dences.
"We didn't want to see
that community live together
again," he said. "We didn't want
to create that situation again."
Throughout last year
there was extensive damage done
in the rooms and common areas of
Campion I, which is a male floor.
Vending machines were tipped
over and the money stolen, and the
piping in the laundry room was
ripped out several times, Rombal-ski
said. In addition, someone uri-nated
in the hallway at least ten
times and someone defecated in
the hallway at least once, he said.
"It was one of the top two
problem areas we had," Rombal-ski
said. He added that the admini-stration
realized that the damage
was not all the faults of those on
Campion I, but "unfortunately it
had to be done."
Several times last year the
students received warnings from
the RA's, but the situation was
never improved. Rombalski added,
"we put the ball in their court many
time. It was the last solution."
Letters were sent out to
Campion I residents on July 28
informing them of the dorm
changes. The University "can
move people around anytime - it's
in the housing agreement," Rom-balski
said.
Such a decision is made
by the University 6nce every four
or five years if that often. "We
tried to be as fair as we could
because we want people to be
happy, but they (the students) put
us in the situation," he said.
The University tried to
do some "reuniting" over the
summer after the students found
out about the changes and requested
that it be done. Requests were
honored on a first come first serve
basis, Rombalski said. "It was not
an easy decision for the admini-stration
to make," he added.
"We didn' t want to break
them all up, but we couldn't put
them all together again on a differ-ent
floor in a different dorm."
The desicion spread
Campion I residents throughout
the other dorms in the quad, and
Kostka and Claver halls, leaving
Campion I 95% freshmen this
year.