Mirror - Vol. 14, No. 09 - November 09, 1989

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 14, No. 9 Our Second Decade Thursday, November 9, 1989 The Image of Fairfield
Minority Interest Position Created In Cabinet
Tom Rhatigan
Assistant News Editor
The Legislature passed a
bill last week adding a new cabinet
position to FUSA. This position,
called the Minority-Special Inter-est
Position, will represent minor-ity
students and special interest
groups of Fairfield, such as the
handicapped and commuters.
This postion, which will go
into effect next year, has two major
purposes: programming at least
two multi-cultured programs per
year and representing minorities
and other groups that have been
neglected.
"The legislature knew there
was a problem with minority rep-resentation
and we recognized the
need for this bill," said Patrick
Foote, legislature member and co-author
of the bill. "This position
will represent the unrepresented."
The idea for a cabinet posi-tion
that would represent minori-ties
and special interest groups
began last April when the idea was
presented to the legislature by
UMOJA. A legislature ad-hoc
committee, chaired by representa-tive
Joseph DeVito, was formed to
invesitgate and come up with a
solution.
"We hoped to come up with
something that would satisfy eve-rybody,"
said Foote. "The pur-pose
was to bring majorities and
minorities together and create a
social atmosphere.'
The bill originally called for
two positions on the Cabinet, one a
multi-cultural awareness position
and the other a minority affairs
relation position. This bill was not
brought to a vote in the legislature
because of problems with the sec-ond
position.
"There was a debate
whether or not there was a need for
two positions," said Tom Pelli-grino,
Legislature President.
"Some felt this bill was restricted
to only AHANA (African, His-panic,
Asian, Native American)
students, and not open to all spe-cial
interest groups. We wanted
this position to represent all of the
groups that have been grossly
neglected just because they are
small in numbers."
Because of this, Pelligrino
and Foote got together and revised
the bill, creating the one position
which will represent AHANA and
the special access needs groups.
Charise Burt, President of
UMOJA, said, "This bill was
needed because for minorities, we
have no say. We want to bring
about an awareness of minorities
on campus."
Speaking on the revision of
the bill, Burt said, "It was that or
nothing at all, although I felt the
first proposal could have been
executed. But we plan to utilize
this postion to the best of our abil-ity."
Camille Banks, editor ofthe
AHANA Current, the minority
newspaper for students, added that
representation in FUSA is the key
to involving minorities in student
life.
"The most important thing
is progress and if that means com-promise,
we will do what is neces-sary,"
said Banks. "Many groups
of people feel left out of campus
activities and this new position is a
definite step in the right direction
of achieving minority and special
interest group representation."
This position will not go
into effect until the next cabinet
takes over in the spring. "From
now until then there will probably
be an initiation period where we
get groups attuned to what is going
on," Pelligrino said.
As far as the future goes for
the Minority-Special Interest posi-tion,
Foote said that he feels this
will bring about a more diverse
student body. "The success ratio is
good," Foote said.
Pellegrino said whoever
gets the position is going to have a
tough job. "It is going to be a tough
job because that person can not ne-glect
any of the special interest
groups," hesaid.. "Overall, I think
it will be successful:"
Members of UMOJA model traditional African dress during Culture Awareness Week. African ward-robe
was hylighted by Nigeria-born Patricia Anekewe last Thursday. From L-R: Charise Burt, Camille
Banks, Bonita Sherell Thompson, Minnette Francis, Lynette Ford, Tabitha Brickhouse. For story see
page 3. Photo: Rich Nunziante
Fairfield: 7th Highest
Tuition In The State
Christine Doody
Staff Writer
There is no doubt that the
cost of education in America is
high. Most parents fear the rising
cost of college and to those stu-dents
who work to put themselves
through school, the cost of tuition
alone seems phenomenal.
This scenario is no excep-tion
at Fairfield University. How-ever,
according to the Finance
Office, the tuition at Fairfield falls
short of operating expenses by
$1750 - $1800 per student. This
figure is exclusive of scholarship
aid or loans that students receive.
Murray Farber, Director of
Public Relations, explained that
the University is "largely tuition
dependent." Tuition covers ex-penses
such as teacher salaries,
Morrison Advocates Equal Access Health Care
Emily Okenquist
Staff Writer
"Health care should be made
available to everyone with equal
access to all who need it. At this
time, however, the access is un-equal,"
said Congressman Bruce
Morrison during a recent lecture.
Morrison, a Congressman
from the Third District of Con-necticut
since 1983, lectured on
"Equality and Health Care" on
October 30. He has been involved
in various social problems in the
past, working on the Committee of
Reforms Affairs and the Third
World Debt Crisis. The lecture
was the second in a series on equal-ity
sponsored by the Humanities
Department.
The Congressman began by
addressing the problems of equal
access and treatment concerning
Health Care which do not currently
exist and asked the questions of
"Who should get Health Care? How
much should one get?" He also
discussed the value choice of
Health Care, beginning with the
marketplace commodity. This
market decides the price one must
pay for it and the allocation of who
gets a certain amount of Health
Care.
The other choice is the de-termination
that Health Care is a
right of citizens in society. "Ev-eryone
ought to have the same
rights," he said, and a social deci-sion
would determine how it would
be paid. The choice of model
decides what results follow, and
the marketplace commodity was
the decision chosen. "How much
Health Care depends on the mar-ket
power and money," Morrison
added.
The government subsidies
of Medicaid and Medicare were
also mentioned. Medicaid, the
government assistance which goes
mainly to poor people, has recently
been reduced, covering less pa-tients
and offering fewer benefits.
Medicare now pays a small per-centage
of Health Care, causing
"more of the cost to be shifted on
the individual," Morrison said.
Because of these reductions, some
people are getting no help and the
system is becoming less and less
equal. The goal is to form a kind of
Health Care process that will offer
equal aid to all, regardless of their
economic status.
"Many people are wealthy
enough to have access to Health
Care, so the system seems to work,"
Morrison said, but it is the people
who are not wealthy that are suf-fering
because they cannot get the
aid. It is these people who would
profit from a "Universal System"
in which "everyone participates
and benefits." An example of this
is Social Security in which every-one
partakes equally and therefore
is a success. Society is heading
toward a system like this because
continued on page 2
Congressman Bruce Morrison Photo: Dan Wall
maintenance, operations, student
programs, and the infirmary.
However, a short fall or difference
exists that must be picked up
through gifts made to the annual
fund.
The Campaign for Fairfield,
whose goal is $35 million, finances
quite a number of areas but does
not directly. alleviate the tuition
deficit. However, Farber noted
that it does donate $6 million of the
$35 million to support the annual
fund, which does pay for the dif-ference.
The Campaign for Fairfield
funds areas such as faculty re-search,
renovations, curriculum
development, student financial aid,
the Fine Arts Center, the new
Chapel, the purchase of media,
science and computer equipment,
books for the library, the creation
of new courses, and visiting Jesuit
professorships.
"The University has been
in the black for 19 consecutive
years," Farber said.
Currently, students at Fair-field
are paying $ 10,000 in tuition,
except freshmen who pay $ 10,300.
Farber explained that since the
University had to make a large
increase, it was better to start with
the incoming class because other
classes probably would not have
anticipated such an increase.
Also, this year's fee for
room and board for all students is
$4,750. Both tuition and room and
board has increased since last year,
when tuition was $9,100 and room
and board $4,500.
Farber noted that it is too
early to speculate an increase in
tuition for next year. Full costs
will not be determined until the
Spring, after the Finance commit-tee,
department heads, and the
provost work together to establish
a figure that can be presented to the
Board of Trustees for approval.
Farber said Fairfield was
listed in i recent newspaper article
as having the 7th highest tuition
for schools in the state of Con-necticut.
Institutions such as Yale,
Trinity, and the University of Br-continued
on Page 2