Mirror - Vol. 16, No. 14 - January 30, 1992

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 16, No. 14 Thursday, January 30, 1992 The Image of Fairfield
Paventi and Shannon Continue
Battle for FUSA President
Emily Okenquist
News Editor
The race for FUSA Presi-dent
narrows down as juniors Jen-nifer
Paventi and Steve Shannon
continue their campaign as the
winners of Tuesday's presidential
primary, defeating juniors Chris
Duffy and Alison O'Shea.
1436 students, approxi-mately
50 percent of the current
enrollment, came out to the polls to
support their favorite candidates,
who circulated throughout the
Campus Center during the day.
The candidates and those involved
in the election committee were im-pressed
with the turnout of voters.
"I hope we also get 50 per-cent
or more next week," said
Jeanne DiMuzio, Assistant Direc-tor
of University Activites. "It
really shows that people are awake
on this campus."
With the primary behind
them and the second phase of the
campaign already in full swing,
both Shannon and Paventi ex-pressed
relief, but also anxiety,
after Tuesday's results were in.
"I'm relieved, but now I'm
nervous again," said Paventi, an
economics major from Brooklyn,
NY. "I've got my fingers crossed,
and I'm ready for a heavy cam-paign."
"It's not even close to being
over yet," said Shannon, a political
science major from Western
Jen Paventi and Steve Shannon address the audience at last Thursday's
debate. photo: K. Guterl
Stacey Irwin '93, Elec-tion
Committee Chair-man.
"It really shows
the involvement of the
juniors and the dedica-tion
of all the students."
DuMuzio, Irwin,
and the other members
of the Election Commit-tee,
which include Ed
Hardiman '92, represent-ing
the FUSA cabinet,
and Jodi Ross '95, repre-senting
the Senate, were
responsible for counting
the votes after the polls
closed Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The voting ma-chines
each have a tally
Spring, IL who was the top vote
getter. "We've still got halfway to
go."
The primary, the first since
1989, drew together four very dif-ferent
candidates from unique parts
of campus, said DiMuzio. "It was
one of the most emotional cam-paigns
because they were all good
friends or acquaintances."
With part two of the cam-paign
going strong, Shannon plans
to "target specific groups of stu-dents."
He wants to emphasize
points on student involvement,
improve relations with the town,
and enhance the reputation of Fair-field
students if he is elected.
"We're going in the right
direction to build a better student
association," he added.
In continuing her campaign,
Paventi will use her work "behind
the scenes" to keep a good per-spective
on the upcoming election.
"I want to see things get done and
get student input," she said.
Paventi also plans to ad-dreess
the racial attack which oc-curred
in Dolan Hall last week and
educate people about what hap-pened.
If elected president, she
plans to implement activities to
attract all students and continue to
stress her main issues of academ-ics
and student input.
"I'm very pleased by the
efforts ofthe four candidates," said
and an individual counter which
counts the votes, then the membesr
of the committee compare the tal-lies
and sign them to insure that the
results are the same.
Following the announce-ment
of the winners, Shannon and
Paventi met with the FUSA Stu-dent
Senate.
The FUSA Presidential
Debate between Paventi and Shan-non,
sponsored by the Mirror, will
be held this afternoon at 12:45 in
the Campus Center Lobby.
The polls for the final elec-tion
will be open Tuesday, Febru-ary
4 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the
Campus Center and Dolan Hall.
Freshmen may only vote in Dolan.
Fink and Logan Prepare for Senior Week
Christina Hennessy
Editor-in-Chief
While May seems a long
way off with snow on the ground,
John Fink and Maureen Logan have
their sights set on Senior Week as
the two will lead the junior class as
co-chairs of the traditional event.
"We just finished inter-viewing
for sub-chair positions so
we haven't established a theme
yet, but we are looking ahead to
making Senior Week a fun event
for the seniors and a chance for the
juniors to find unity," said Fink, a
biology major from Copiague,
New York .
Roughly 75 juniors, in-cluding
sub-chairs and workers,
will participate in the event. The
sub-chairs and the co-chairs will
be looking for a theme over the
next few weeks which will encom-pass
all of the events during the
week.
"Senior Week is the last
time seniors will have the chance
at seeing members of their class
before graduation," said Logan, a
finance major from Long Meadow,
Massachusetts.
"The events will offer the
senior class an opportunity to have
a great time and will give the jun-iors
a chance to meet more mem-bers
of their class."
The two co-chairs were
among a pool of eight applicants
who had to submit an application
and interview with the selection
committee.
"The selection committee
was looking for two people who
would be strong leaders and moti-vators
that were able to show strong
organizational and interpersonal
skills," said Matt Dinnan, Assis-tant
Director of the Campus Cen-ter
and member of the selection
committee.
Dinnan and the other
members of the Campus Center
staff will serve as advisors for
Senior Week.
"These two held these
qualities and we felt that they would
work well together," he added.
As the Senior Week Com-mittee
has a "zero-based budget",
the committee will rely on the sale
of the tickets to absorb the ex-penses.
The event cost roughly
$85,000 last year and some money
was left over from last year's event
which will carry over to this year's
funds.
Events will run from May
13-16 and a Senior/Jesuit social
sponsored by Alpha Sigma Nu, the
Jesuit Community and the Senior
Week Committee, on the last day
of classes, Pub Night, the senior
picnic, a faculty/senior brunch, and
dances for both the students and
the parents.
Once the sub-chairs are
finalized, they will go to work on
their events and begin the ordering
Maureen Logan and John Fink photo: K. Guterl
of supplies and the planning of
activities. The co-chairs will over-see
the process.
Both Logan and Fink
worked on Orientation '91 and
mentioned the experience gained
during that event led them to look
towards getting involved in Senior
Week.
"Asjuniors, our class starts
the year off by getting together
during Orientation and welcoming
in the freshman class, and it ends
the year by coming together again
to work closely so we can usher out
the senior class," said Logan.
"I felt Orientation '91 was
a rewarding experience for both
the freshman and the juniors," said
Fink."
"I hope Senior Week of-fers
another opportunity for the
junior class to pull together and the
senior class to enjoy themselves
and have a good time," he added.
The selection committee
was made up of Dinnan, Jeanne
DiMuzio, assistant director of
University Activities, and Julie
Ford, Tim Lloyd and Judy Fargo,
graduate assistants, as well as the
tri-chairs of SeniorWeek last year;
Mike Canzano, Ed Hardiman and
Miffy Lanosa.
Racial
Prejudice
Displayed
in Dolan
Emily Okenquist
News Editor
Despite the beginning of
Black History Month and the ob-servance
of Martin Luther King,
Jr.'s birthday, racial discrimina-tion
still prevails on the Fairfield
University campus, most recently
directed toward two black students
in Dolan Hall.
On the evening of January
21, Lateef Lee '95 returned to his
room in Dolan to find the words "F
U niggers" written on his door, an
attack which seemed to be aimed
at his roommate, Kenneth Owens
'95, who had been elected Hall
Governor for his floor.
"This is a shame and will
not be accepted," said Brendan
Carroll '93, the Resident Advisor
on their floor. "It's two people
being cut off by someone who is
obviously bigoted and backwards."
After Owens was elected ,
he hung up posters around the floor,
saying that if anyone wanted to
speak to him about floor programs
| to stop by his room. According to
Lee, the signs were soon torn down
and replaced with ones which said
that Owens had "fixed the vote"
and they wanted a re-election.
The climax of these events
was Tuesday's literary attack,
which is under investigation by
Security and the administration.
In response to what oc-curred,
the situation was addressed
at all of the Masses this past Sun-day,
and at the 10 o'clock Mass,
Owens read a poem about race.
"It's a beginning," said Fr.
Paul Carrier, S.J., University Chap-lin.
"We have to reach out, look at
reality, and change it."
Fr. W. Laurence O'Neil,
S.J., Dean of Students, sent a letter
to all Resident Advisors informing
them of what happened, and Patri-cia
Christiano, Assistant Director
of Residence Life, addressed the
members their floor that this kind
of behavior will not be tolerated.
"This is a very distressing
situation," said Larri Mazon, Di-rector
of Minority Relations and
Student Academic Support Serv-ices,
"and always seems to be
channeled toward the African-
American and AHANA students.
There needs to be a strong state-ment
institutionally against this."
At the request of the Resi-dent
Advisors, Mazon has previ-ously
participated in floorprograms
dealing with multiculturalism and
will continue to do so. Carroll has
plans to talk with his floor about
the effects of this situation.
"These two [Owens and
Lee] are very talented people, and
one ignorant person is trying to
ruin it for them," said Carroll.
"Hopefully, we can come out of
this proactive and work with the
mistrust to come out with more
understanding."