Mirror - Vol. 21, No. 02 - October 03, 1996

              [LIE . ■..,,-: ■ .... FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
IRROR
Volume 21 Number 2 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, October 3, 1996
Former Haitian
leader to address
students
Kristen Sullivan
Assistant News Editor
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the
former president of Haiti, will
deliver a lecture entitled "De-mocracy,
Literacy, and Other
matters" at the Quick Center's
Kelley Theatre on Monday,
October 7, at 8 p.m.
The lecture is sponsored by
FUSA, the College of Arts and
Sciences, and Campus Minis-try.
Additional contributions
were also made to support this
lecture.
Aristide was elected presi-dent
in 1990, following a UN-monitored
election in which he
garnered 67.5 percent of the
vote. Ayear later, he was forced
into exile in the U.S. by a vio-lent
coup d' etat. As the
country's legitimate president,
Aristide continued to monitor
and direct the nation's affairs
while in exile.
In 1994, the U.S. backed
Aristide's return to power. He
then completed the remainder
of his term in office. He formed
a civilian police force and as-sisted
in the transition to the
next democratically elected
presidency.
Aristide, a former Roman
Catholic priest who is fluent in
seven languages, founded the
Aristide Foundation for Democ-racy
which promotes education
in Haiti, and La Fanmi Selavi, a
home for street children.
Student tickets for Aristide's
lecture are on sale this week
from noon to 2 p.m. daily in the
Campus Center, and in Dolan
Hall from 5 to 7 p.m.
The general public may ob-tain
tickets by calling the Quick
Center at 256-4010 on Satur-day,
October 5 beginning at 10
a.m.
Tickets are $2 for students;
$5 for faculty and staff; and $7
for the general public.
Fairfield drops in
U.S. News ranks
Heather Wade
Staff Writer
Forthe past ten years, USNews
and World Report has published
an edition entitled "America's
Best Colleges." This guide pro-vides
readers and prospective
students with the rankings of
1,400 of America's most com-petitive
schools. The schools are
rated by geographic region and
are ranked according to reputa-tion
and educational data.
In the 1996 edition, Fairfield
University ranked as the second
best regional university in the
North, behind first-place
Villanova University. The rat-ing
for each school in a region is
relative to the school with the
highest regional ranking, which
is rated one hundred percent.
Fairfield was not far behind
Villanova with a score of 98.6.
Providence College was third,
scoring 97.1.
In the 1997 edition, however,
Prov idence leaped over Fairfield
and stole second place, while
Fairfield slipped to third with a
score of 96.0. This setback re-sultedfrom
an analysis ofschool-provided
data, using a weighted
value for each individual cat-egory.
Fairfield's academic repu-tation
was ranked third in the
region, tying with Providence in
that category.
The academic reputations of
the schools are determined by
the expert opinions of 2,730 col-
/
lege presidents, deans and ad-ministrators.
Their conclusions
are valued at 25 percent of the
overall total. The educational
data is based on severaldifferent
categories of academic quality
which include student sensitiv-ity,
faculty resources, retention,
and alumni giving. Although
there were minor changes in ev-ery
category, the only one with a
significant change was the fac-ulty
resources. Fairfield's rank-ing
dropped in thiscategoryfrom
14 to 54.
The faculty resource category
is based on the student to faculty
ratio, the percentage of full-time
faculty with doctorates, the per-centage
ofpart-time faculty, the
average salary forprofessors, and
class size. The drop in ranking
may likely be attributed to the
increase in school enrollment this
year. This has caused some
classes to be overcrowded, there-fore
affecting the student
tofaculty ratio. It also resulted in
the University hiring more part-time
faculty to handle the in-creased
population. This cat-egory
has a weighted value of20
percent of the overall score.
The only other major change
in the educational data was in the
alumni giving category, which
dropped from a rating of 31 to 54
having little effect on overall
score since it was valued at just
five percent.
IRHG festival
captures spirit of
New England
Theresa Vitello
Staff Writer
The Oak Room patio was
transformed into a fair on Friday,
September 27, as raffles and
games were sponsored by each
residence hall in celebration of
Fairfield's annual New England
Day.
At 4 p.m. the booths were all
set up, boasting some of the most
creative and unique games ever
sponsored by residence halls.
Dark clouds and the threat of
rain worried many of the volun-teers,
as the fear of having to set
up inside the Oak Room passed
through their minds. Yet, the
weather seemed to take a turn for
the better once more and more
students showed up making this
year's New England Day have
one ofthe greatest tum-outs ever.
"New England Day is a fun
Continued on p. 4
This
Week's
Top
Stories
fr "\
Lyme
Disease
hits home.
Page 6
fr State of
the
University
address.
Page 9
fr Del
McCoury
Band to
play. Page
11
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^
fr
^
Men's
soccer
loses to
Lehigh.
Page 14
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^
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