Mirror - Vol. 16, No. 16 - February 13, 1992

              The
FairfieldMIRROR i^y *
Volume 16 No. 16 Thursday, February 13, 1992 Happy Valentine's Day
Campus Community Responds
to Racial Attacks
Emily Okenquist
News Editor
"Welcome to the real world.
There's no peace and harmony.
It's a race, religious, national
struggle."
These remarks by Dr. Walter
Petry, assistant professor of his-tory,
set the tone for last Thurs-day's
Dolan talk-back, a panel
discussion centering around the
need for increased diversity on the
Fairfield University campus,
sparked by the recent racial attacks
in Dolan Hall.
In the past two weeks, fresh-men
Kenneth Owens and Lateef
Lee have been the victims of dis-criminatory
remarks, returning to
their room twice to find the word
"nigger" written on their door.
Not only was the topic of
racial discrimination debated, but
also the termination of the position
of Faith, Peace, and Justice and its
director, Cornelia Dinnean, and the
discrimination against gay stu-dents,
prompted by the slashing of
tires on a gay student's car in the
Dolan parking lot last semester.
A 12-person panel, which
consisted of five students, five
faculty members, one graduate
student, and one administrator,
answered questions on these top-ics
posed by an audience of over
200 people, mostly students, in a
Dolan Hall lounge.
Panelists included Kenneth
Owens '95, Karen Lui '94, vice-president
of the Asian Students
Organization and an AHANA
representative, Gladys Chevere
'92, vice-president of SALSA, Dr.
Marie Panico, professor of mod-ern
languages and director of the
■'■i-^SSi:
1 «H Hi ! 1 «*'■■■ W
i *i * !
Members of the panel discuss the need for multicultulism at the
Dolan talk-back.
Latin American and Carribean
Studies program, Chris Love, a
graduate student in the School of
Education and a counselor in the
office of Minority Relations, Louis
Rivera '95, a member of SALSA
and AHANA, Paul Marcarelli '92,
Dr. Sally O'Driscoll, assistant
professor of English, Dr. Johanna
Garvey, assistant professor of
English, Larri Mazon, director of
Minority Relations and Student
Academic Support Services, Dr.
Mark Worden, associate professor
of psychology and moderator of
the talk-back, and Petry.
"The attacks were not just at
me, but at all AHANA students,"
said Owens, the target of the racial
slurs which occured after he was
elected Hall Governor. "We must
think about what it does."
It is imperative that the needs
of minority students be filled be-cause,
according to Liu, by the
year 2015, AHANA groups will
comprise 51 percent of the United
States population, making the
"white majority" a minority.
Though the talk-back was
organized in response to the recent
incidents, the main issue, said Love,
"is racist attitudes in general and
how to eliminate them."
Mazon was "appalled and
outraged, but not surprised" [at the
racism] because we inherited a his-tory
of racism and violence. This is
the only country that has someone
from every part of the world," he
added. "We must learn to live
together, not separately."
Emphasizing racial diversity
in the faculty has been proposedto
increase campus diversity, though
little has been accomplished, caus-ing
a student to question why.
"We've done searches for
women and minorities, but it's
extremely difficult to get them,"
said Dr. Richard DeAngelis, chair
ofthe history department. "There's
only one faculty member of Afri-can-
American background. Wejust
can't attract them, but there is no
conspiring to keep them out."
Of the five faculty members
on the panel, two of the five, Gar-vey
and O'Driscoll, are untenured
professors, who risk their positions
by taking a stand on these issues. A
question arose on why haven't the
tenured faculty acted before these
incidents occured to help prevent
racial discrimination.
"They don't know all that
goes on," said Owens. "They want
to help, but can't do anything. If
we want a change, we have to get
up and do something. The change
has to come from those who really
want multiculturalism, like the
people in the audience."
The word "multiculturalism"
does not only include various eth-nic
groups, but also the gay, les-bian,
and bi-sexual students on
campus. A live teleconference on
these concerns took place in the af-ternoon
prior to the Dolan talk-back,
and discussions continued
that evening as members of the au-dience
and panel remembered four
years ago when a proposed organi-zation
for these students was
quickly shot down.
"For gay students, it's been a
four year upward battle," said
Marcarelli. "Students should have
a safe place, established and per-sonal,
and completely accessible
for anyone to go to at anytime."
"Gay culture is a culture and
should be part of multicultural
relations," said an audience mem-ber.
Though the administration
(continued to p. 2)
From Beheadings to Perfumed Sachets;
Valentine's Day Boasts Centuries of Tradition
Christina Hennessy
Editor-in-Chief
If you can think as far
back as grammar school, right
around this time you may have
been experiencing that high anxi-ety
of sending Valentine's. Who
do you send them to? Which
ones do you send out?
Should you send the "I
love you" card to that all-consuming
crush or do
you play it safe and send
out the "You're the Best
Friend" valentine?
Ahhhhh - deci
sions, decisions.Valentine's
Day, however, like many holidays
change significantly for people as
they grow older and for students at
Fairfield, it appears to have be-come
as varied in the manner of
celebration as is the legend behind
the holiday.
"If you have no one to
spend it with it's just another day,
so what difference does it make,"
said Michael Bonelli, '92, who is
available for valentine's messages,
however.
One legend known to
Bonelli is that "St. Valentine was
in jail and wrote a note to the jail-master'sdaughter,
whom had fallen
in love with him, before he was
cruelly put to death, saying 'Be
Mine - Valentine. '"Who is St. Val-entine,
the patron saint of love and
courtship?
Historical sources
place St. Valentine's in
Terni, a small town
roughly 80 miles away
from Rome, during the
reign of Emperor Clau-dius.
Claudius perse-cuted
Christians during
this time and St. Valentine's
is believed to have been a
martyr who lost his life on Febru-ary
14 in 270 A.D.
There are several differ-ent
tales, however, around the true
story. One story handed down is
that St. Valentine steadfastly stood
by his faith and was imprisoned
and beheaded. Another claims that
he was thrown to the lions.
The closest connection to
the actual meaning behind Valen-tine's
Day is the legend that Clau-dius
forbid people to marry be-cause
he wanted his men to be
soldiers and fight for Rome, not
stay at home. St. Valentine was
said to ignore the command and
continued to wed young lovers in
secret with the blessing of the
Church. He was discovered, im-prisoned
and beheaded.
Finally, St. Valentine was be-lieved
to have cured the blindness
of his jail keeper's daughter As
soon as she received sight she
became infatuated with«( y
him. On his way to ,|
death, he wrote a
quick note that was
signed "Your Valen-tine."
This prac-tice
is thought to have
led to the tradition of
delivering messages of
friendship and love that *
continues today. ^ J
"I don't have the time
to send Valentine's messages
while in school," said one junior.
"The day just goes along like any
other day, except more people wear
red."
Sending messages and
sentimental verses and wearing red
hasn't been around forever, but the
tradition goes as far back as the
1400s, according to old diaries and
records. The custom was fully es-tablished,
however, by the begin-ning
of the 19th century.
Before people had the
local card and gift store to pick up
manufactured valentine greetings,
they made their own valen-tines
which consisted ofpic-tures
and verses. Books
would eventually come
out with the sole pur-pose
of providing
verses and sayings for
valentines.
Gifts were
T exchanged as well,
4 but as the 18th century
rolled around gifts
y became less expensive
and the practice of send-ing
ornate valentines, such
as those with dried flowers,
(continued to p. 4)
Second
Act of
Prejudice
Occurs in
Dolan
Jo Docimo
Staff Writer
For the second time this
semester, a racial attack shocked
the Fairfield University commu-nity,
occurring in the midday hours
of February 5.
The attack was again aimed
at Kenneth Owens and his room-mate
Lateef Lee, both freshmen
living in Dolan Hall. The word
"nigger" was scrawled across the
memo board on their door.
In an effort to inform stu-dents
of the second incident and to
speak out on such an abhorable
crime, a mandatory meeting was
held for Dolan Hall residents by
the department of Residence Life.
"We thought the issue had
been laid to rest and things were
beginning to clear up," said Patri-cia
Christiano, assistant director
of Residence Life, "but unfortu-nately,
this is a real campus issue."
Harassment of another indi-vidual
because ofrace is a crime in
the state of Connecticut and pun-ishable
by a jail sentence, mone-tary
penalty, or both in accordance
with existing guidelines such as
location, property damage, or
similar circumstances.
University policy, as stated
in the student handbook, also does
not tolerate any act of racism or
bias. However, the handbook does
not state any specific punitive
measures to be taken.
The Town Police are also
conducting an investigation.
"A crime such as this will
not be tolerated," said a security
officer during the meeting. "We
ask anyone with information to
come forward. People withhold-ing
information are just as guilty."
Maura Cenci, the Head Resi-dent
in Dolan Hall, emphasized
the need for education for all stu-dents
to understand how people
feel about what is happening. "No
one should have to live in an envi-ronment
of that kind," she said.
Students spoke about the im-portance
of trying to make a dif-ference
through speaking out and
informing others about racism.
"This action is a major in-fraction
and it has done much to
destroy what many have done to
build the school up to what it is
today,", said William Schimpf,
vice-president ofStudent Services.
"These actions are the means of
the destruction ofthis community."
Fr. Aloysius Kelley, S.J.,
University President, said, "Situ-ations
like this are absolutely in-tolerable.
Unfortunately, not ev-eryone
shares the same values that
this institution stands for. There is
much learning to be done for some-one
out there."