Mirror - Vol. 16, No. 17 - February 20, 1992

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 16 No. 17 Thursday, February 20, 1992 The Image of Fairfield
WVOF Airs Broadcast
to Discuss Racial Issues
Carrie Brown
Staff Writer
"Racism doesn't start here
at Fairfield University. It's some-thing
that people have grown up
with. We're not going to tolerate
our peers being terrorized the way
that they have been."
These remarks by Steve
Shannon, president-elect ofFUSA,
were just some of the main ideas
that were being discussed last
Tuesday on a WVOF broadcast
centering around the racism issue
at the University.
In response to the racial
incidents which have occured in
Dolan Hall and the Dolan Talk-
Back which was held on February
6, this broadcast was aired to in-crease
awareness of the serious
issues currently facing Fairfield
University.
A panel, which consisted
of five students, one graduate stu-dent,
and three faculty members,
discussed not only racism, but also
sexism, homophobias, and issues
of economic diversity.
The panel, lead by Shannon
Cross '93, Public Affairs Director
of WVOF, included students Ei-leen
Lopez '92, president of
SALSA, Joren Reyes'92, a minor-ity
relations and special interest
representative to FUSA, Ric Gra-done
'92, a representative of the
gay students on campus, and Shan-non
'93.
Also present were Fiona
Edwards '95, a minority goup
member and Chris Love, a gradu-ate
student who is also a counselor
in the Office of Minority Rela-tions.
They both served on the panel
of the Dolan Talk-Back as well.
The faculty members were
Dr. Walter Petry, assistant profes-sor
of history, who also served on
the Dolan Talk-Back panel, and
Dr. Arthur Anderson, professor of
sociology. Fr. Paul Holland, S.J.,
assistant University chaplin, rep-resented
Campus Ministry.
After she was harassed for
speaking Spanish to a friend in the
Campus Center, Lopez commented
that "we live in the United States
which stands for a melting pot
environment."
Dr. Walter Petry discussed campus
racial issues at theWVOFBroadcast, as
he did here at the recent Dolan Talk-
Back on the same topics.
Reyes said, "We are very
homogenus students and there is
such a thing as a typical Fairfield
student and we are all working and
living together and good and bad
things will come out of it." He
found it "brave and important that
these afflicted people spoke up."
"You can't start at one
place," said Shannon. "You have
to address this issue from all areas.
If we address this issue as a unified
university I think it's something
that we can beat."
Shannon also informed the
panel that Brian Hayes '92, the
current FUSA president, is offer-ing
a $1000 award from the treas-ury
for the names of the people
who commited these acts of ra-cism.
Anderson believes that
"reality is an important part of our
curriculum. This campus is not
American because 24 percent mi-nority
are in the work force and by
the year 2000, it will be 60 per-cent."
"We need scholarship
money available for black and
hispanic students to have Fairfield
reflect America," said Anderson.
Petry feels the
changes can come about if
"in each core course you
can infuse an enormous
amount of diversity. The
members of the various de-partments
should find a
coherent way of introduc-ing
students to things
they've never heard of."
Fr. Holland said,
"Campus Ministry's first
response was to preach at
all the masses about the sins
that were commited."
Edwards sees Fair-field
as a university of re-action,
"where we need a
spark to react upon. We
definitely have a spark. We
need to move on from here."
Reyes sees changes taking
place only if "we had a diverse
cabinet of students in FUSA. It's
the job of each one of us to accept
the view that people have their dif-ferences."
Petry said, "No student
should get out ofhere without being
exposed to minority students, and
all minority students need a strong
support system."
"At this point, all of this
must be seen in a larger context,
that diversity comes in all forms,
some of it is race, some of it is
religion, some is sex, and some is
sexual orientation," said Ander-son.
"But whoever feels mar-ginal
and is made to feel uncom-fortable
for that on this campus,
that is the overriding issue that
affects all kinds of students. We
have to address this," he added.
Jogues Freshmen
Testedfor Sulfur
Dioxide Inhalation
Alicia Ignacio
Contributing Writer
The testing is finally over, and so far, everyone has passed. This
is not about midterm exams, but rather an indepth examination of
eight freshmen residing on the fourth floor ofJogues Hall who inhaled
large quanities of sulfur dioxide in the beginning of the semester.
Only now has the medical testing ended.
On Wednesday, January 15, two of the girls noticed a strange
haze in their room.
"It smelled like rotten eggs," said Sheila Eustace '95. "Around
11:30, our fire alarm went off."
For three days, they had gone without heat, and now they began
to worry even more. Security was called in, and their fire alarm was
taken without being replaced. The fire hazard alone was enough to
scare them, but the security officer reassured them there would be no
further problems.
By Friday, January 17, there had been no attempts to replace the
alarm, and security had no report that it had been taken out in the first
place. After contacting security a number of times, this situation was
remedied.
During the weekend, the girls began having chest pains, and on
Monday night, the smell returned. Six days had gone by, and the sulfur
dioxide was still present in their rooms.
At 11:00 p.m., five girls were taken to St. Vincent's Medical
Center in Bridgeport, and three went to the University Health Center.
Blood tests for arterial gas were administered, and evacuation from
their rooms was enforced that night. The following day, all student
residents ofthe Jogues 4 South wing were evacuated and only allowed
to return at 11:30 p.m. that night.
. At this time, the sulfur dioxide was traced and permanent plans
of relocation were considered.
According to the January 20,1992, Newsbreak that was posted
throughout Jogues Hall by Campus Currents, "a piece of terra cotta
inside the chimney broke away and fell inside causing fumes to enter
some of the students' rooms. Their tests proved negative." Since then,
the girls have been tested for a variety of disorders, including pulmo-nary
problems.
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA),
sulfur dioxide is "a colorless gas that will not burn or detonate, but it
can cause serious injury despite medical treatment. Symptoms of
exposure include coughing, wheezing, larangitis, shortness of breath,
nausea, and vomiting."
Over the course of the two weeks, students experienced all of
these symptoms except for vomiting. NFPA codes suggest discarding
all clothing and shoes that have come in contact with sulfur dioxide.
The University has volunteered to dry clean their clothing, and six of
the girls have been relocated throughout campus.
For two weeks, students were inhaling the sulfur dioxide and
possibly carbon monoxide that also went undetected for several days.
Deussing: "Cherish the Earth As We Do
Our Families and Friends"
Debra De Shong
Assistant News Editor
In front of a crowd of
people in the Faculty Dining Room
stood radio personality Bill
Deussing. Deussing resembled
everyone's favorite history teacher
in high school, short and stout,
wire glasses and a shiny head with
a clump of curly hair hiding in the
back. He does not fit the part he
plays, an organic farmer, social
philosopher and environmental
artist.
Deussing is a staunch en-vironmentalist
and last week, he
brought his messages to Fairfield
University.
According to Deussing,
the earth is in bad shape. He feels
"we need to cherish the web of life
on earth as we do our families and
friends." With a picture of a globe,
he reminds us that we all have to
live here and get rid of our waste
here as well. If we do not pay
attention to the environment, we
will end up destroying it com-pletely.
Forests, the basic ele-ments
of ecology, are under attack
everywhere and we cannot live
without trees. If there were no
trees, a likely prospect at the rate
we are destroying forests, the
summers would be very hot and
the winters extremely cold.
America is guilty ofmany
atrocities against the earth. We use
more aluminum cans than the rest
of the world combined. As a re-sult,
we demand cheap aluminum.
Hydrolic dams are built to provide
cheap electricity to in turn make
cheap aluminum. However, as a
result of the dams, several salmon
species are being destroyed. This
in turn, affects the Native Ameri-cans
who depended on the salmon
for food. This is only one example
of how we are affecting the world.
Deussing presented many
slides to show the state of the earth
today. He showed barren land that
was once a rainforest, eroded soil
in Tennessee, a barren and envi-ronmentally
declining Africa, and
one slide that really hit home. It
was a slide of Bridgeport which
Deussing called, "another waste-land
we have created."
Along with shocking
pictures, Deussing provided some
facts and advice. He said that we
pay about $250 billion a year for
our energy systems. That amounts
to $1,000 per person per year to
support the fossil and nuclear en-ergy
industries. We cannot change
our energy system overnight, but
Deussing advises us to pay more
attention to the solar patterns and
to "think about what we want the
future to be like and then work
towards that."
If we do not change the
way we live, it could result in dis-aster.
Deussing displayed some
slides showing the effects ofglobal
warming and a map displaying the
areas over which the ozone is most
depleted; the biggest ozone gaps
were over the U.S. and Western
Europe.
The information that we
get from the media concerning this
issue is often basic and uniformed,
so we must search for the true
facts.
Fifty years ago, things
were done without money. People
grew their own food, sewed their
own clothes and used to walk to
work. If we are to survive,
Deussing feels that we should
revert back to some of those od
time practices. He suggested things
as simple as a clothesline. By
using a clothesline, not only do we
conserve electricity, but we utilize
the natural element of the sun.
Deussing left us with
three things to think about - every-thing
connects to everything else,
everything has to go somewhere,
and everything has a cost. With
these in mind, according to
Deussing, we must change the
earth.