Mirror - Vol. 16, No. 10 - November 14, 1991

              The
FairfieldMIRRORV Volume 16, No. 10 Thursday, November 14, 1991 The Image of Fairfield
Frustration and Disgust
Follow ABC News Report
Debra De Shong
Assistant News Editor
Fairfield University made
national news Monday evening,
November 4 with a story dealing
with underage drinking. Peter
Jennings' report on ABC's World
News Tonight featured scenes from
college parties from several parts
of the country.
The bulk of these drunken
scenes were shot at a party held at
Fairfield Beach in early October.
The location was identified as a
college campus in Connecticut, but
several students were wearing
Fairfield University sweatshirts,
jackets, and caps.
"They [the cameramen]
weren't coming there to film a
normal party," said Dan Forgie,
'93, who appeared on the news.
"They wanted to see something
extreme."
According to students, the
cameramen encouraged the stu-dents
to do things on camera that
they would not normally do. "They
basically said 'Let's see what you
guys can do,'" Forgie said.
The students were seen
chugging beer out of pitchers and
doing keg stands, drinking beer
directly from the keg while stand-ing
on their hands. When the crew
arrived at the party, no keg was
tapped, so the news people waited
until one was.
Julie Callahan, '93, also
observed the cameramen encour-aging
the students to drink. "They
didn't tell them what to say, but
they definitely were asking people
what they could do," she said.
Both Forgie and Callahan
attested to the fact that the camera-men
were drinking along with the
students. No one was given a for-mal
interview or was asked on
camera how they felt about under-age
drinking.
The crew spent over two
hours at Forgie's beach house, but
the only scenes shown were of
drunken chaos, not respectable dis-cussions.
Forgie feels that the students
were misinformed as to the subject
of the story. He claims the students
were told that the topic was on
drinking on college campuses.
When he saw the feature on televi-sion,
he was very surprised.
"Ifthey had told us the story
was about a fifteen year old kid
who died doing 26 shots of Vodka,
we would've addressed that issue,"
Forgie said. "Instead they asked us
how often we drink, and why. It
was totally irrelevant to the story."
The reaction around cam-pus
has been a mixture of anger,
disgust and frustration. Fr. Tom
Regan, S.J. reflected on the issue
in his homily last Sunday. He feels
that the story captured the self-indulgent
side of Fairfield.
"It's most disturbing be-cause
it's very real," he said and
feels the story will have a big effect
on admissions and the reputation
ofthe school. "People have no idea
what the ramifications will be."
Amy Schermerhorn, '93, is
so disturbed by the story that she
has written a letter to the president
of ABC News.
"Underage drinking and
alcohol abuse is a real issue and
should not be swept under the rug,"
she said. "However, it's frustrat-ing
that the program chose to focus
on a microcosm of the Univer-sity."
Schermerhorn feels that the
story did not misrepresent college
parties, but she is frustrated that it
concentrated only on those stu-dents
that were drunk.
The general concern on
campus is the reputation Fairfield
will have. Alison O' Shea,' 93, said,
"There are so many positive things
about this university, andnow when
people see this, it's just very bad
for the school."
It is a fact that underage
drinking does happen on most
college campuses, including Fair-field.
However, seeing Fairfield
students onnational television was,
according to Fr. Regan, "a real
wake up call."
Fairfield Abolishes Current
Frosh Housing Policy
Rick Denhup
Staff Writer
Fairfield University is ex-pected
to institute a new freshman
housing policy beginning in the
fall of 1992, according to Richard
Rossi, director of Residence Life.
Pending approval by William P.
Schimpf, vice president of Student
Services, Fairfield will proceed
with a plan to integrate freshmen
with upperclassmen on residence
hall corridors beginning with the
class of 1996.
While Rossi said approval
of the change in policy is "fairly
certain," he said approval may
come at any time.
"[There is] no specific time
frame for approval of the policy,"
he said.
The much-debated, current
housing policy for freshmen, insti-tuted
in the fall of 1990, distributed
freshmen onto freshmen-only
floors in Jogues, Regis, Campion,
Loyola, and Dolan East Halls. In
addition, freshmen were given their
own dining hall on the Dolan
Campus.
The new plan would inte-grate
the class of 1996 with upper-classmen
in floors in Jogues, Re-gis,
Campion, Loyola, and Dolan
East. Rossi explained that "based
on a filled residence system, inte-gration
would occur on a percent-
Dolan Hall, above, Jogues, Regis, Loyola, and Campion Halls will
no longer have freshmen-only floors, upon approval of the new
housing policy. Photo: f,,e
age basis."
Freshmen would be given a
percentage of rooms in the resi-dence
halls, while upperclassmen
would live in the rest. The exact
number of rooms to be used by
freshmen and upperclassmen has
not yet been determined.
Rossi said that the change is
being made based on a recommen-dation
passed by FUSA and subse-quently
by the University Council
to integrate freshmen with upper-classmen.
He stressed that the
change is not being made for aca-demic
or behavioral reasons, but
solely on these recommendations.
"There is no sufficient data
for differences between freshmen
or integrated floors in perform-ance
and behavior .of students,"
Rossi said. "No research has been
or will be done [on potential aca-demic
or behavioral differences
between freshmen and integrated
floors] due to a lack of time to
conduct such research."
Approximately 700 fresh-men
live on campus on freshmen-only
floors. While next year's
freshmen class will live among
upperclassmen on mixed corridors,
they will still dine in the cafeteria
on Dolan Campus.
Faith, Peace, and
Justice Position to be
Terminated
James Bodor
Features Editor
"I think this shows de-plorable
insensitivity to the need
for academic support," said Dr.
Paul Lakeland, head of the Reli-gous
Studies department, in refer-ence
to the administration's an-nouncement
that the position of
Faith, Peace, and Justice Director
will be terminated at the end ofthis
academic year and the current di-rector,
Cornelia Dinnean, will be
forced to leave.
While the administration
claims the decision is financially
based, many faculty members are
outraged, claiming it does little to
tighten the budget and comes at
the hands of pressure from Cam-pus
Ministry, reflecting what some
see as a developing trend of the re-moval
of women from Fairfield.
Dr. Robert Stepsis, Aca-demic
Vice President, sees the
move as based purely on financial
reasons. "It's simply a matter that
the position had become a luxury
in a time when we have to watch
our pennies," he said, though many
faculty members find this reason
difficult to believe.
"There is something of a
financial crunch, a need to trim
budgets," said Lakeland, "but
where you trim them indicates
where your priorities lie. Why trim
out the person who the University
itselfclaims to be its central educa-tional
mission? Doesn't make
sense to me - unless the school
isn' t telling the truth when it claims
(these things)."
Another objection to the
decision is that it involves the
removal of services from the aca-demic
realm of the school and
places them into the religious
realm, namely, Campus Ministry.
"My first reservation is
that what she is doing is primarily
an academic,position," said Dr.
Alan Katz, professor of politics in
reference to Dinnean." The people
in Campus Ministry do an impor-tantjob,
and they do it well, but she
is doing an overwhelmingly aca-demic
function."
"There are certain people
who feel peace and justice should
only be the responsibility of Jesu-its,"
said Lakeland.
Stepsis stated that, while
not all services will be moved to
Campus Ministry, that depart-ment's
success was a factor in his
decision to terminate the office.
"Certainly the success of
Campus Ministry influenced my
decision," he said. "They are part
of the reason why the position
became redundant."
Fr. Paul Carrier, S. J.,
director of Campus Ministry, dis-agreed.
"There's no pressure from
Campus Ministry. We're all here
to advance the mission of the Uni-versity.
We're not competing."
He sees the decision as
reflecting the University's grap-pling
with its direction for the fu-ture.
"In a Catholic university, you
have to deal with the relationship
between the religious and the aca-demic,"
he said. "In a Jesuit Catho-lic
university, it's even worse,
because the two are complemen-tary.
They have to work together."
Another objection is that
a female position has again been
removed, an act some people con-sider
a trend. "This is another oc-cassion
when a woman adminis-trator
is let go by the University,"
stated Katz. "I think it's important
to have a female presence in this
area. It's very unfortunate that will
not be true after this year."
Asked if the decision re-flects
a trend of the removal of
womenfrom Fairfield, Stepsis said,
"No. That's a red herring. The
number of women who have been
hired in faculty and administration
. in the past five years is immense."
According to Stepsis, 18 of 31
faculty openings have been filled
by women, several of whom hold
several administrative positions.
\
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Alumni Associatio
Donates TV \
/
The Alumni Association of Fairfield University has do-nated
a 60 inch Mitsubishi Diamond Vision Screen television
for use in the newly renovated Stag-her Inn.
"Before the Stag-her was renovated, there was a large
screen TV which the Alumni Association sponsored in the
past," said Tim Martin, assistant director of Alumni Relations.
"When it was updated, the Association approved sponsoring
another one."
Upon renovation, Jim Fitzpatrick, assistant dean of Uni-versity
Activities, asked the Association if they would donate
another TV as they did in 1978. "I knew I could count on them,"
he said, "so I wasn't at all surprised at their generous gift."
The television, which is similar to those in ballparks and
stadiums, will be used for movies, videos, and special events in
the Stag-her. "This is another program tool for non-alcoholic
programming in the Stag-her," said Fitzpatrick. "We're very ex-cited
about it."