Mirror - Vol. 03, No. 01 - April 5, 1979

              Alcohol Symposium ASuccess;
Prevention Program Planned
By Claudia M. Napp
Phase I of The Alcohol Abuse
Prevention Program, co-sponsored
by the universities' Campus Ministry
got underway Saturday March 31.
The progrram's coordinator is Mr.
Daniel M. Merrigan of the Ministry
staff.
Saturday's symposium is viewed
as step one of the overall program.
The purpose of the conference was
to bring people from all areas of the
university together to recognize the
problem. Those who participated
were from the faculty, administra-tion,
staff and student body. In this
light the conference was a success.
"No quarter of the university can say
they didn't get a chance to play a
part in the activities," stated Mer-rigan.
Mr. Merrigan began the day's ac-tivities
by explaining what is actually
meant by alcohol awareness, and
prevention. "We want to approach
the problem as a preventative mea-sure.
Giving people the facts about
alcohol the substance, and
alcoholism the disease. By dealing
with alcohol abuse, we may be able
to prevent increased incidences of
alcoholism. The groups' primary pur-pose
is prevention, not prohibition."
The keynote speaker at the "sym-posium
was Mr. Brian Murray, Edu-cational
specialist, Alcoholism Coun-cil
of Greater Bridgeport. Mr. Murray
is a reformed alcoholic who
graduated from the university in
1976. He spoke of the need for pre-vention
at the university level.
The members of the conference
were divided into four groups which
served as discussion, task forces.
Each group was presented with
three objectives: first to share infor-mation
about abuse among mem-bers
of the campus community.
Secondly, to examine attitudes con-cerning
responsible and irresponsi-ble
use of alcohol. Finally to es-tablish
a network of people and
facilities and encourage their
cooperation in attaining agreed upon
goals.
At the end of their afternoon discus-sions,
they were asked to present
any agreed upon propositions and
conclusions in dealing with the ques-tion
of prevention. "It was really in-teresting
in the end because each
group came up with the same ideas,
only worded differently," stated
Dana Juliano an R.A. from Campion
Hall. Mr. Merrigan felt that basically,
the groups all had "quite similar opi-nions
as to what strategies and
methodologies would be useful for
educating the entire university com-munity
about alcohol the substance,
responsible use of alcohol, irrespon-sible
use and alcoholism the
disease."
The next phase of the Alcohol
Abuse Prevention Program will be a
"goal setting workshop." This phase
will entail five main steps:
1- Introduction; 2- Developing a
mission statement; 3- Identifying in-dividual
and group goals; 4- Testing
goal reality; 5- Planning goal im-plementation.
"The final step of 'goal
implementation', will enable us to
give the Administration a package of
educational strategies and materials,
Dan Merrigan, Coordinator of the Campus Committee for Alcohol Abuse
Prevention (Photo by Colin Kelleher)
which could easily be used," stated
Dan Merrigan. The Phase II task
force will be charged with the re-sponsibility
of day to day operation of
the Campus Alcohol Abuse Preven-tion
Program.
The final or Phase III is seen as
really only the beginning of a strong
campus organization with many pro-gram
ideas and options. Once the
goal setting workshops are com-pleted,
the task force may begin to
initiate those activities and recom-mendations,
that were made. Mr.
Merrigan stressed that, "ultimately
in the final stage, we need students.
Students to learn as well as students
to teach. A group representative of
the student body and able to com-municate
directly with their peers."
THE
FAIRFIELD Volume 3, No. 1, April 5,1979
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY, FAIRFIELD, CONN. 06430 MIRRORIncorporated 1977
Alumni Institute New Awards
For Outstanding Achievement
Anthony Mixcus, Alumni Association (Photo by Colin Kelleher)
Schietinger Made Interim
President Of Legislature
By Karen Erdos
The Student Legislature of the
Fairfield University convened for its
weekly meeting this past Thursday to
elect a new interim president. The
election of George Schietinger as in-terim
president two weeks ago was
declared void because of violations
of election rules. There had been a
problem with improper use of proxy
ballots during the previous election.
Nominees for the position of interim
president were Jean Luglio, Greg
Magner (who subsequently declined
the nomination), Brian Norwood, and
George Schietinger. All of the can-didates
expressed a belief that a
strong president was needed to get
the legislature back on its feet and
make it more effective and dynamic
organization to better serve the
needs of the school. Some of the
candidtates expressed the belief that
the legislature members themselves
were not being informed of the pro-cedures
needed to run the body ef-fectively,
and all were concerned
with the attendance problems of the
body. In the final election, George
Schietinger was again elected in-terim
president over Brian Norwood
by a very narrow margin 12-11 votes.
Later in the meeting, Mike Di-
Spirito, co-director of SEC, gave the
SEC report on Dogwood Weekend to
the legislature. The concert will be
held on Saturday April 29, and will
feature Leon Redbone as the lead-in
(presently unconfirmed, but no dif-ficulties
are expected) and NRBQ
(New Rhythm and Blues Quartet) as
the headline act. There will be two
shows at seven and ten in Gonzaga
Auditorium. The dance, featuring the
band Hawkeye from the Boston area,
will be held on Sunday April 30 (there
is no school on the Monday following
this) in the gym. There will be no
tickets available for the concert
alone as was the usual practice in
the past, rather the events for this
year's Dogwood weekend are avail-able
only in a package for both the
dance and the concert. The package
is expected to cost approximately
$16-$17. DiSpirito also mentioned
the tentative date for May Day as
•Saturday May 5.
In other business, Tom Trivilla was
sworn in as a member of the Legis-lature
representing the off campus
boarders, Liz Scully was elected to
one of the two open positions from
Far East, and the charter for a new
club on campus, the Financial Man-agement
Club was approved by the
Judicial Committee and passed by
the Legislature. As the meeting clos-ed,
intermin president George
Schietinger expressed a desire to
publicize the meeting more in and at-tempt
to generate more interest in
the Student Legislature.
Also at the meeting, Denise
D'Agostino, treasurer of FUSA, and
Ken Donovan, comptroller of FUSA,
spoke to the members of the legis-lature,
expecially to those on the ap-propriations
committee in an attempt
to iron out some difficulties involving
the appropriations of clubs' budgets.
D'Agostino explained the procedure
of appropriating funds and proposed
that regulations in relation to ap-propriations
be written down and
given to members of the legislature
and to each of the various clubs on
campus to avoid confusion in the
future.
By John Hughes
Two new awards for student
achievement have been established
by the Alumni Association. Accor-ding
to Anthony Mixcus, Vice Presi-dent
for Student Relations, the
awards will be presented in addition
to the traditional Loyola Award and
the Sports Awards.
One of the awards will be pre-sented
to a student who has shown
"outstanding service" to the Alumni
Association during his or her under-graduate
years at Fairfield. Explain-ed
Mr. Mixcus, "The Alumni Associa-tion
greatly needs student assist-ance
for many of its projects. Phone-athons
for fund-raising, the Awards
Dinner, and the Homecoming all call
for student volunteers. The award
was set up to recognize the achieve-ment
of a student who offers a great
deal of time and work to the Alumni
Association."
The recipient of the other newly-established
award will be selected
on the basis of "his or her outstan-ding
contribution to a specific Fair-field
University or community pro-gram,
activity or organization." Mr.
Mixcus stated that "The award is
meant to recognize a student who
has devoted a lot of time to a par-ticular
organization, whether it be
the Student Government, the news-paper,
the radio station, the Youth In-volvement
Council or some other on
or off-campus organization."
The St. Ignatius Loyola Award,
which was instituted in 1952, differs
from the new award because it is
presented to a student who has dem-onstrated
general academic ex-cellence
and extra-curricular in-volvement,
whereas the new award
is meant for the student who has
made his or her mark in a particular
area. Unlike the Loyola Award which
is presented annually, both of the
new awards will only be presented
when a student meets the qualifica-tions
and is recommended to the
Alumni president. Thus, the new
awards could conceivably have
several recipients one year and none
next year.
The Alumni Association also spon-sors
the Sports Awards, which are
given to one male and one female in
the Varsity Sports and one male and
one female in the Club Sports. These
awards are presented to the stu-dents,
either players or managers,
who have shown great achievement
in their sport. The Most Valuable
Player in basketball is also spon-sored
by the Association.'
Some of the other services of the
Alumni Association include a schol-arship,
($1,000 per year for four
years), which is given each year to a
son or daughter of an alumnus. The
selection is based equally on finan-cial
need and individual potential.
The Alumni Career Advisor Pro-gram
was jointly established by the
Alumni Association and the Counsel-ing
Center for the benefit of all Fair-field
students and alumni seeking as-sistance
in selecting a career. Alum-ni,
well established in several oc-cupations,
have volunteered to
counsel under-graduates and fellow
alumni in various areas of their ex-pertise.
A listing of available alumni
is kept in the Counseling Center,
(Loyola 110) and interested students
are welcome to visit the center.
U Council Outlaws Grain Alcohol;
Continues Work On Campus Concerns
By Robert J. Schumm
The University Council has recom-mended
to Student Services that
grain alcohol be prohibited from
social functions held on campus.
Student Services will put the recom-mendation
into effect sometime after
Easter recess, according to William
Schimpf, Dean of Student Services.
The Council also recommended
that the University Administration
develop a minimum of two areas that
could be utilized forr scheduled
social functions accomodating up to
approximately 250 people.
Schimpf, who introduced the pro-posal
said that "grain alcohol does a
fast and quick job. A person can't tell
how strong the drinks being served
are. There are definate negative ef-fects."
He continued that "this
measure will not effect private par-ties
held in an individual's room. I
feel personally, that there is one
motivation for the consumption of
grain alcohol, to get intoxicated."
The action passed the council by a
vote of 10-O-1.
The recommendation for two new
areas came about after it was shown
that there is only one area of this
kind, the Oak room.
Other proposals considered by the
University Council, that were either
defeated or referred back to commit-tee
for further study were:
1. After the development of the new
areas, parties would not be permit-ted
in the residence halls, other than
private parties. This proposal was
tabled until the areas were an ac-tuality
and a survey could be taken
among the students.
2. The faculty moderator of an
organization sponsoring an event
Continued on Page 3
Arts & Sciences Awards Winners Chosen
by Gigi Byron
Awards night for the Arts and Science Awards, instituted this year by
Dean Nicholas Rinaldi, was held on March 15 in the Oak Room. Winners of
the Arts award were selected by a faculty committee headed by Professor
Walter Petry, and Science Award winners by a faculty committee headed
by Professor Kurt Schlichting.
The prize for each group was $250 and was shared by the three winners
in that group. Funding for the award was made possible by a gift to the
University from William Miles, Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
The recipients of the arts award were: The Classics Club for a video
cassette of the latin play Mostellaria, Laura Neville for an essay from a per-sonal
interview with the contemporary artist, George Tooker, and Thomas
Romeo for a paper on the novel My Antonia by Willa Cather.
The recipients of the science award were: Roger Dobris for a research
paper on intra-governmental stress which he studied in Washington on a
semester-long Politics seminar, Albert Juergens who designed a device to
aHow a camera to take high quality photographs of the sun, moon and
planets, and Joseph Sauvageau who did a project on polarization of light,
using a color scope to show stress on plastics.
Also at the ceremony, seven finalists for the arts award were invited to
present their projects. They are: Janice McGrath, Nancy Dierchsmeir,
Trevor Brown, Joanne Camera, Anne Ewing, Sherwin Collins, and Joann
Sargent.