Mirror - Vol. 17, No. 15 - February 25, 1993

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 17, No. 15 Thursday, February 25, 1993 Pray for (another) snow day
Upcoming March Raises Student Awareness
Students hope March for Unity will bring change
Debra De Shong
News Editor
According to Tom
Boucher, Jonnie Jones and Kevin
Robinson, Fairfield University is
a bubble and they are just the ones
to pop it. "The people here are
sheltered, they need to see
different faces and learn about
each other," said Jones, "we need
to get people from Bridgeport and
Fairfield to interact and to get to
know each other as people."
The solution these three
soft-spoken men have settled on
is the "March For Unity" to be
held this Sunday on campus;
The march originally
started out as a floor.program when
Robinson and Boucher, both
resident advisors in Campion Hall,
started to make plans for a program
in honor of black history month.
When the pair asked Jones, ajunior
member of the African American
community on campus and a Stag
basketball player, what he would
like to see as a program, he
promptly suggested a march.
"This is personal for me and the
entire African American
community. This is needed on
this campus and it has to benefit
everyone and ofcourse the African
American community will
benefit," he said.
The march has
snowballed into a campus-wide
event that the men hope will be
repeated every year.
The issue of
The "bubble poppers" (from 1. to r.); Jones, Boucher, and Robinson, photo: C. St. Louis
multicultural harmony has been a
prominent one since the racial
attack that shocked the campus on
Feb. 5, 1992. The word "nigger"
was scrawled across the memo
board of Kenneth Owens and
Lateef Lee, then freshmen living
in Dolan Hall. This was the first
tangible racial attack on campus
and it has sparked new proactive
efforts, like the march, to prevent
further attacks.
Jones says the march
itself means many things, but
mostly it is. to achieve the unity
that Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X stood for. "They both
stood for peace, and not
segregation but unity," he said.
"The march stands for
the idea of a unified society. We
want to take their ideas (King and
Malcolm X) and apply them to
today's society," said Robinson,
ajunior.
The march, which is
scheduled to begin at 2 pm at
Loyola Hall, the first of its kind
on this campus, is open to all
members of both the university
community and area residents.
All area universities, including
Sacred Heart, Western
Connecticut, and the University
of Bridgeport, are also invited to
attend.
The organizer^ are
asking that organizations bring
banners to show theircommitment
to unity. There will also be several
speakers, including faculty,
community leaders, and students.
The event is expected to draw
between 350 and 500 people.
"This is a start. The
slogan of the march is 'Taking
Steps Towards a United Nation'
and this is just a small step to
getting people with other cultures
to get to know each other and to
learn where they are coming
from," said Boucher, a senior. He
stresses the fact that this march is
meant to include everyone, and is
meant to unify those of different
sexual preferences and religious
as well as races. He feels that
students here are unaware and
unwilling to learn about diversity,
"you cannot be blind to other
people's heritage. People here
have a better than thou attitude
and they have to try to learn" he
says leaning forward with a low,
yet firm voice.
The men hope to get
maximum student participation
and hope to involve every
residence hall. "If anyone has
anything to say, this is the place
to say it, in a peaceful forum,"
says Jones. "We have to get
everyone to see where the other
people are coming from.
Everyone thinks Bridgeport,
where I'm from, is a different
part of the world. Some of my
friends from there don't even
know what Fairfield looks like,"
he said with a shy smile and a
shake of his head.
There has been positive
feedback from both faculty and
students but Fiona Edwards, a
sophomore and member of
UMOJA, says, "the idea is unlike
anything done before on this
campus, because it is proactive,
but it is also semi-hypocritical."
She feels that the march is saying
that the university is making
strides towards diversity when in
reality it is not. "However, maybe
the march is a way to get the ball
rolling," she said.
Robinson hopes this
proactive measure will open
people's eyes in a positive way
and that it will make them want
to learn about other cultures.
Boucher feels it is part
of being an educated person. He
said, "Part of education is to
challenge ourselves, and we are
challenging people to get to know
people of different cultures. You
can't be blind about this issue,
it's no way to go through life."
Walker Brings The "Funnies" To Fairfield
Rosalind E. Van Tuyl
Staff Writer
One of the most read sec-tions
of any paper is its comics
section. The "funnies" are read
by young and old alike because
they are a quick, not-so- serious
look at ficticious characters lives.
But have you ever been laughing
at a comic strip and wonder, "How
do these cartoonist come up with
these ideas?" Brian Walker, who
writes the cartoon strip "Hi and
Lois," has started teaching a class
in cartooning through Fairfield's
school of Continuing Education
to that and other questions about
cartooning. "The objectives of
the course are to promote appre-ciation
of cartoons, learn how to
come up with ideas, and to have
fun," Walker explains.
Walker's strip, "Hi and
Lois" is syndicated in over 1,200
papers around the world. Walker
is also the son of Mort Walker, the
creator of "Beetle Bailey." Hav-
Bailey' is more like slap stick,
whereas 'Hi and Lois' is more
reality based," says Walker. "To
be a successful cartoonist, you
don't have to be a great artist, but
you do need to be a great idea
person. The key is to emphasize
human themes that people can
identify with."
Walker uses observa-tions
of his own family as mate-rial
for many of his strips. "Often
the strip will sort of write itself.
The characters all have their own
distinct personalities and that
makes it easier to know how to
make them react to a set of cir-cumstances."
Walker uses a variety of
teaching techniques in class, in-cluding
workshop exercises where
students can try their hand at
cartooning. Walker also has many
prominent illustrators and anima-tors
on hand for guest lectures.
Walker had his partner,
Chance Browne, come into class
two weeks ago to show how the
"idea man" and the illustratorwork
to put the whole strip together.
"That was a lot of fun," Walker
commented. "The students really
seemed to enjoy watching the fi-nal
product come together."
ing grown up in a "cartoon envi-ronment,"
Brian Walker is able to
teach a class with fresh insight
into the world of cartoons.
The ideas that are incor-porated
into the strip are as im-portant
as anything else in the
strip. "There are certain ideas
that work in certain strips. Others
won't. For example, 'Beetle
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