Mirror - Vol. 23, No. 08 - November 13, 1997

              FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
IRROR
Volume 23 Number 8 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, November 13, 1997
Thefts at the beach on the rise
Nell Bateman
Assistant A&E Editor
Love Littlefield '99
was not looking forward to
cleaning up the mess from the
party at her beach house the
night before. The people were
gone, the beer was gone, and
now it was time to clean up.
Yet, more than just
people left her house that night:
a laptop, a printer and 75 CDs
made an exit as well.
Littlefield is a first
year beach resident at Lantern
Point on Fairfield Beach Road.
Lantern Point is a small, gener-ally
safe community of beach
houses where many off-cam-pus
Fairfield University stu-dents
live. But recently, thefts
at these "safe" beach houses
have become more and more
common.
"We knew the major-ity
of the people at the party,"
Littlefield said. "They were
almost all our friends."
Littlefield's house
mate Courtney O'Brien, '98,
said, "I guess for an instant we
weren't paying attention."
They weren' t monitor-ing
the guests, and it turned out
to be a $2500 party. "You can't
trust anyone," O'Brien said.
Their house is one of
seven known houses that have
been burglarized in the past three
weeks. Andthe bigger the party,
turn we expect a little respect.
The next morning, my house
mate's fleece was stolen. I
Student beach houses at Lantern Point Photo: Mirror Archives
the bigger a target it is.
One particular house
that'had "the naut", the move-able
party at the beach, last
week attracted many people,
and the party's price tag was a
$125 fleecejacket nonchalantly
taken from behind a chair in
their dining room.
"Having a Thursday
night naut should be enjoyable,"
resident Angie Allen said.
"We're giving away free beer
to people who come and in re-don't
call that respect."
A house that hosted
one of the "Screw Harvest"
parties was also an easy target
because of the mass amount of
people that gathered there.
Only a camera was taken but
Johanna Sigmund '98, one of
the girls living there, still be-lieves
that this incident shows
a lack of respect.
"There were random
people in our house that I didn' t
know, but it's all in good fun,"
she said. "We just want people
to respect our house and our pos-sessions."
The majority ofvictims
do not report small losses to the
police such as CDs, food, and
cameras. These are the most
common things that have been
taken from the beach houses.
But this is nothing com-pared
to the thefts that happened
to two houses on the night of
Nov. 3. Two box stereos, $100,
two wallets, a Walkman, a
Gameboy, a backpack and sev-eral
credit cards were taken be-tween
the hours of 2 a.m. and 6
a.m, according to residents of
the houses. One resident's purse
was found, empty ofcredit cards,
on the driveway.
This was an entirely dif-ferent
kind ofburglary. Itwasn't
someone pilfering during a party,
but a break-in in the middle of
the night.
Brook Jackson '98, a
resident at one of the burglarized
houses, neverthought it was nec-essary
to lock the door because'
the beach area is considered a
safe community.
"We hardly ever lock
our door," Jackson said. "I don't
think a lot of people down here
do. It's so, well, inconvenient."
Stephanie Brambilla,
Continued on page 3
Fairfield rated in 1998 college guides
Elizabeth Dejesu
Contributing Writer
The Princeton Review
has already put out its 1998 col-lege
guide in which Fairfield
University is listed as a "selec-tive
school." Yet, a national
debate is taking place on how
much validity should be given
to such rankings.
As far as Fairfield Uni-versity
is concerned, "Princeton
Review tends to give catchy
phrases and then doesn't back
them up. It can be very frustrat-ing
for colleges," says Mary
Spiegel, director ofadmission at
Fairfield.
Alan J. Stone, president
of Alma College in The
Chronicle ofHigher Education,
said, "I don't think they have a
clue as to what quality is."
Alex Huppe, director
of public relations for Harvard,
said, "everyone has a question
about the beauty contest aspect
of it".
A national survey of
251,232 various freshmen-found
that 8.6 percent did feel
that college rankings were in-fluential
in choosing a school,
according to The Chronicle of
Higher Education. Yet, in the
same article of The Chronicle it
was noted that many adminis-trators
at colleges distrust the
methods used to come to such
rankings.
Fairfield can already
gauge its image for 1998 in
The Princeton Review and The
Fiske Guide to Colleges. Both
books categorized the univer-sity
with a general summary
which listed statistics like tu-ition
and number of students.
More probes into the
university, though, give pro-spective
students information
and quotes from unidentified
students regarding clubs, sports
teams, and a review of the aca-demic
and the campus life.
Academics at
Fairfield University were re-viewed
as being taught by car-ing,
knowledgeable professors
who are readily available to
give any sort of guidance
needed to students, according
to The Princeton Review. The
comments rang true to several
Fairfield students who said they
find their professors to be ex-tremely
accessible.
Jennifer Ploder '01
said, "The professors here want
you to learn despite the heavy
course load."
"Yes, the professors are
extremely accessible and en-courage
you to make appoint-ments,"
Amy Santoriello '00
said.
In The Fiske Guide to
Colleges, the subject of academ-ics
was discussed with more of
an emphasis on the actual classes
offered, the strength of certain
Continued on page 4
Inside this
week
FUSA fall
lecture can-celled
at last
minute
Find out the info, on pg. 3
Is our campus
safe?
Taking a closer
look at security,
see p. 5
The Women's
Studies Center
Looking for a new
place to study, talk, or
research? see p. 6
Franz
questions
article on RTM
Franz questions
sources in last week's
piece , see p. 8
Stop leaving
blood in the
water
Staff writer suggests
reasonsfor thefts, seep. 9
Find out how
to get some
"Hattitude"
Check out New Brown
Hat, see p. 10.
What's up
Doc?
Has Bugs Bunny
come to campus ? See our
second in the Sodexho
series, seep. 12
Women's
soccer quali-fies
for NCAA
Tournament
Find about them, see p. 16