Mirror - Vol. 21, No. 04 - October 17, 1996

              FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
IRROR
Volume 21 Number4 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, October 17, 1996
Midnight Madness II falls short of
pandemonium
Jo Ann Gometz
News Editor
The area in front of Alumni
Hall was crowded by 10:15 Mon-day
night, a full quarter-hour be-fore
Fairfield's Midnight Mad-ness
II was set to get underway.
It seemed as if the organizers'
vision of "Pandemonium in
Alumni Hall," might be on tar-get.
By 10:40, when the event
actually started, it was clear that
Stag fans still needed coaxing to
support their team.
In the mild melee preceding
the official welcome, the Stag
was decapitated by a hooded as-sailant.
For some of those in at-tendance,
that seemed the high
point of the evening.
Eric Roland, one of four co-organizers
ofthe event, served as
the master of ceremonies, and
opened the evening's festivities,
saying, "To the thousands here
and the millions watching world-wide,
on behalf of FUSA; let's
get ready to rumble."
Following a Macarena con-test,
three-point contest, the sing-ing
of "The Star-Spangled Ban-ner,"
a performance by the
lamation met with ill-concealed
disdain from the students as-sembled.
During Robbins' initial
address, the Stag
dance ensemble, De-grees
of Motion, and a 3-on-3
contest in which "Overrated"
beat "Lights Out," the cheerlead-ers
took the court to perform
their own dance routine.
Marc Robbins of Channel 12
Sports, following last year's
proclamation of "The Year of
the Stag," declared this year the
"Year of the Antlers." The proc-dis-covered
that making
shadow-puppets on the big screen
set up for video clips was a good
attention-getter. So shadow the
Stag did, drawing attention away
from Robbins' speech, and enter-taining
the audience.
Sometime before midnight, the
crowd began to disperse, but a
significant number of people re-mained
to see video clips of the
men's team, and to see the teams
emerge in a haze of smoke and
multi-colored strobes.
After the teams ran drills,
women'scoach Dianne Nolan
introduced her team, while
Marc Robbins returned to in-troduce
the men' s team in place
ofcoach Paul Cormier, who was
unable to attend, due to the death
of his sister, Marsha, earlier in
the day.
After the men ran their own
drills, proving a definite capabil-ity
for dunking, with 100 percent
of the men slamming the ball, the
women showed an equal affinity
for life on the court, running their
own drills with precision and skill.
However, by the time the
women took the floor, the gym
was nearly empty. Organizers and
basketball die-hards alike ex-pressed
their displeasure with
those who left, but more than one
student was heard to say, "Two-and-
a-halfhours is just too much."
Parents' Weekend
plans set
Appalachian
connection continues
Kristen Sullivan
Assistant News Editor
Parents willhave an oportunity
to visit campus and their chil-dren
when Parents' Weekend
gets underway Oct. 19 and 20.
Over 2,300 family members are
expected for the annual event,
which begins Saturday at 9 a.m.
Saturday's agenda features a
football game, as the Stags take
on Canisius at 1 p.m. on Alumni
Field; Mass, celebrated at 4:30
p.m. in Alumni Hall; and panel
discussions about topics such as
"Election '96" and "Career Plan-ning,"
which wil take place from
10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In addi-tion,
the deans of each school
will speak on behalf of their pro-grams.
At 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday
night, comedians Tim Settimi
and Becky Blaney will perform
in the Quick Center. A hypnotist
will also perform in the Oak
Room beginning at 9 p.m. The
Reverend Aloysius P. Kelley,
S.J., University President, is ex-pected
to deliver a welcome ad-dress
to parents and families at
10 p.m. in the Oak Room.
On Sunday, the Glee Club
will perform in the Quick Center
at noon, while the Alpha Sigma
Nu inductions will take place,
also in the Quick Center, at 3
p.m.
Students whose parents wil
not be attending Parents' Week-end,
are encouraged to eat brunch
on Saturday inDolan Commons
between 11:30 and 1 p.m., be-cause
space in the Campus Cen-ter
cafeteria will not accomodate
the students and the number of
families expected to attend
brunch.
Susan Olsen, the coordinator
for the event, still needs volun-teers
to help out over the course
of the weekend. She said, "Many
events have been planned and
we're hoping for a nice day."
Any students interested in vol-unteering
should contact Olsen
in the Development Office at
254-4004.
Heather Wade
Staff Writer
For the last 21 years < crafts
people from the Appalachian
states have traveled to Connecti-cut
to participate in the annual
Appalachian Cultural Arts and
Crafts Festival. The festival was
established by former Fairfield
alumnus, the Reverend William
Sangiovanni, who founded Ap-palachian
Volunteers, Inc., a non-profit
organization established to
help improve the quality of life
for those who live in the Appala-chian
region.
Sangiovanni created the festi-val
in an attempt to improve the
living standards of the Appala-chian
people by enabling them to
sell their handmade crafts in the
Metropolitan area.
Initially, Sangiovanni sold the
Appalachian crafts fromthe back
of his station wagon. He later
arranged to hold the festival in
the backyard of Fairfield resi-dents
George and Millie Bisacca.
Since then, the Appalachian Fes-tival
has grown into a huge suc-cess.
It entertains thousands of
Connecticut residents and has be-come
Connecticut's longest run-ning
festival. This year, the Appa-lachian
Festival was held at the
Barone Campus Center at Fairfield
University.
Attendees are given the chance
to participate in Appalachian cul-ture
by purchasing a piece of
handiware, while listening to live
mountain musicians, and watch-ing
the Bannerman Family &
Friends Clog Dancing Team.
Quilts, woodcarvings, furniture,
baskets, pottery, weavings, baby
clothes, puzzles, toys, rugs, one of
a kind dolls, non-motorized
wooden toys, and Christmas deco-rations
are among the most popu-lar
crafts available.
This year, new stands include
Only Ewe, a shop run by a West
Virginia group selling handmade
sweaters. A group from North
Carolina opened a shop called the
Pot Hole, featuring hand thrown
continued on page 3
Inside
This
Week
(r ^\
Encounter
with
Sexual
Harrassment
Overcrowded
classroom
issue
rebutted
p.9
Concert
Announced
p.12
%
Women's
Tennis wins
fifth MAAC
champion-ship
p.16
J
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