Mirror - Vol. 20, No. 12 - February 08, 1996

              The
FairfieldMIRR©R Volume 20, Number 12 Thursday, February 8, 1996 The Image of Fairfield
Reardon elected to FUSA Presidency
Christine Hamel
News Editot-
By a
victory of 885 to 334, Michael
Reardon defeated Karen
O' Connor to become the 51 st
FUSA President on April 2.
Reardon, a junior
and a sociology major, from
Milton, Massachusetts, has
been quite active on campus.
He is ai resident advisor,
cochair of the Hunger Clean
Up, a member of University
Council, a Eucharistic
minister, a mission volunteer,
amemberofthe Multicultural
Task Force, one of the
election commissioners from
last year's FUSA President
election, a tour guide, a
freshman facilitator, and a
member of the LEAD
program. In addition,
Reardon has just concluded
his term of being FUSA
Senate President.
Reardon will begin
his administration with two
main goals. His first goal is
to work in cooperation with
the other groups and
organizations on campus.
Then, he will make a priority
list of his platform issues.
Reardon wants to work
with O'Connor and "share the
ideas to get things done." He
feels that throughout the election
both himself and O'Connor
showed their great love of
Fairfield.
"Both Karen and Mike
are very qualified candidates who
knew their issues and platforms
inside out. Their.mutual love for
Fairfield and commitment to
FUSA was apparent in the way
that they conducted themselves
in the campaign," FUSA
President Mark Reed said.
"Thank you for getting
out to vote and hopefully I will
continue actively in FUSA and
continue my platform ideas,"
O'Connor said.
Some of Reardon's
platform goals are to start a
cooperative approach on campus
particularly with alumni. He
would like to see the alumni/
mentor program flourish into a
strong relationship especially
with the city alumni council.
Reardon would like to
continue the cooperative
approach with the town. In
addition to the RTM
representatives, hopes to
increase the Hindsight program
to foster a better relationship
between the town of Fairfield
and Fairfield University.
Another goal of
Reardon's centers around
athletics. He would like to build
on the Midnight Madness
program by working primarily
with the new football program
to make it a success. To do such,
he would like to ensure a
tailgating policy and implement
it to all students. Reardon does
not want to see other programs
suffer because of the new
football program. To ensure
that, he would have the Student
Athlete Advising Committee
work to have all the teams be
supportive of one another and
to keep going successfully.
Reardon feels that
something needs to be done
with the Rec Plex. He would
like the facilities to be evaluated
and the number of equipment
to be expanded. Reardon wants
to set up an interim policy
possibly setting up a group
membership between Fairfield
and Gold's Gym.
In addition, Reardon
would like to see technology
and computer services change
and start by linking more of
campus on-line particularly
information dealing with
registration. He would also like
to change the registration
program around. First, Reardon
would have professors make a
copy of their syllabi be placed
online so that students know
what the course entails. He
feels that this would lessen the
drop/add and be more efficient
with the Registrar.
Also, Reardon would
like to look at the servers for
the computer labs. He would
like the system reviewed and
possibly upgraded. This would
help when a class is working
on a project online by having
the system not act so slowly.
On Reardon's
agenda is to make the Student
Health Advisory Committee
more involved. He wants to
let students know that they
can voice their opinions to the
committee and the problems
can be fixed.
He would also like to
continue and expand the
shuttle service on long holiday
weekends for students and
create a mall link as well.
Reardon wants to work on the
Safe Rides Program with
Alpha Sigma Nu and solidify
the program by making sure
that students are transported
in a safe mode.
Reardon would also
like to continue to make sure
that the STAG Directory is
out on time. In addition, he
would like to explore different
formats and the idea of adding
professors' office numbers and
phone numbers. Also, he wants
to see about Saturday mail
service in the mail room.
To represent our
diverse student body better,
Continued on page 3
A disastrous weekend at Fairfield
Christine Hamel
News Editor
JoAnn Gometz
Assistant News Editor
Power outages, loss of
phone service, and lack of heat
were the major topics of con-versation
this weekend when the
University's electrical system
experienced unforeseen techni-cal
difficulties.
A response team, in-cluding
Assistant Vice Presi-dent
for Adminsitration Ric
Taylor, explained this situation,
the aftermath, and the plans for
the future during a recent inter-view.
On Saturday, Feb. 2, at
7:15 p.m., some buildings on
the Fairfield Univeristy campus
lost power, only to have it re-turn,
fully or in part, after a
short time. Boilers and eleva-tors
could not work on the single
phase electricity that remained,
and their motors began to over-load
and breakdown, produc-ing
smoke. This smoke was then
distributed throughout the
buildings by the fans, which
were also at less than full power.
By 7:45 p.m., the re-sponse
team comprised of Tay-lor,
Energy Services Manager
Bill Auger, University electri-cian
John Tedesco, and Direc-tor
of Fire Safety and Environ-mental
Services Joseph M.
Bouchard, had arrived on cam-pus.
They called for Sullivan
Electric, which deals with high
voltage work, and has per-formed
much of the electrical
services on campus over the
years, and for United Illumi-nating,
which is experienced in
both emergency response, and
research.
The first hour was spent
looking up the electrical plans to
find possible sources forthe prob-lem.
The problem was an electri-cal
switch between the CUF
building and Kostka Hall, where
a component had melted and
failed, causing the loss of one leg
of a three cable distribution sys-tem
that supplies power to the
campus buildings.
One member of the En-ergy
Service staff had heard a
loud noise near the CUF build-ing.
The blowing of a fuse was
ruled out, although a fuse was
intentionally blown, as part of
the safety system. The melted
switch was discovered at the first
of four possible sites.
By 11 p.m., several dif-ferent
options had been outlined,
but for logistical and safety rea-sons,
the team decided to splice
the cables together under the
switch. United Illuminating vol-unteered
to obtain the necessary
materials from their warehouse
in Shelton.
The United Illuminat-ing
equipment returned at 2:30
a.m., and repairs commenced at
3 a.m., which was when the
power was shut off altogether so
that thecrew could work. At that
time, seven switches around the
campus needed to be opened so
as to avoid a backfeed of elec-tricity,
which would have killed
any crew working on the re-pairs.
13,800 volts of electricity
flow through the cables, and
safety had to be the first priority.
By 6 a.m., those re-pairs
were finished, and power
was restored incrementally,
again for safety reasons.
However, at 7 a.m.,
another problem was found,
leaving the library, Campus Cen-ter,
Bannow, Kostka and Claver
Halls out of power. The cause
was a spliced cable under-ground
near the satellite dishes.
At 12:45 a.m., after
much testing and trouble-shoot-ing,
the splice was fixed, and by
2:45 p.m., the main power was
restored, followerd by the above
mentioned buildings at 3:20
p.m., although Kotska and
Claver Halls were shut down
for an additional 20 minutes
for final adjustments.
The Dolan Campus,
the townhouses, locker rooms,
McAuliffe Hall, and the Levee
were not affected by the prob-lem.
They each have a separate
power feed from the street,
rather than the University loop.
According to
Bouchard, an initial fire call
was made from the campus cen-
Continued on page 3
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