Mirror - Vol. 23, No. 12 - January 29, 1998

              FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
IRROR
Volume 23 Number 12 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, January 29, 1998
FUSA candidates announced
Dana Ambrosini
Assistant News Editor
The FUSA presidential
election is slated to take place on
Tuesday Feb. 3 with three diverse
candidates vying for the topFUSA
position.
The presidential candi-dates
are Brian De Montreux '99,
Brian Mello '99, and Michael
Piagentini '99.
To explain why he wants
to be the next FUSA president,
DeMontreux relayed a story.
While studying in Nyselius Li-brary
one night, he suddenly no-ticed
that the lights were going
out around him. He realized that
the library was closing and he
still had about three hours ofwork
to do.
It was this first problem
that led De Montreux to begin
looking around campus and pick-ing
out different things that he
would like to do something about.
Thus was born a FUSA presiden-tial
candidate.
A transfer student and
native of Oyster Bay, N.Y., De
Montreux was passionate when
describing his first day on-cam-pus.
He stated that he immedi-ately
fell in love with Fairfield
and would like the opportunity to
Brian De Montreux
serve the student body.
De Montreux' s ideas for
the university include having a
used book forum to get rid of the
bookstore's monopoly and insti-tuting
on-line registration. He
also said that he would establish a
regular shuttle bus from Latent
Point at the beach to the Barone
Campus Center. The bus would
run back and forth on a set, reli-able
schedule from Thursday to
Saturday.
"These are reasonable
and attainable goals," De
Montreux said.
Brian Mello
De Montreux said
that there were many good
things that FUSA does now
as president that he would like
to maintain. Support for the
Glee Club and other activi-ties,
particularly by taking
there events into consider-ation
when planning out the
year, were among these.
Another issue De
Montreux would like to see
addressed is the townhouse
problem.
The junior finance
major's credentials include
Mike Piagentini
volunteering for the Hunger
Clean-up and volunteering in
the Campus Ministry at the
McGiveney Center in Bridge-port.
He is also secretary of the
Finance Club and had been
president of the Nassau Com-munity
College Chapter of the
National Honor Society for two
years.
De Montreux said that
"by being a member of the
Fairfield University commu-nity,
I am a member of FUSA."
continued on pg. 3
Crucifixes in classrooms?
Students split on adding religious symbol
Joseph Marcello
Co-Commentary Editor
Fairfield students are di-vided
on the issue of whether
crucifixes should again be placed
in classrooms on campus, and
most feel the overall influence of
religion on campus is about right,
according to the first annual Mir-ror
Student Survey.
The poll also found a
majority of students disagreed
with the idea of the university
adding more academic courses
that deal with traditional Catholic
church teachings.
The issue of crucifixes in
classrooms has been hotly de-bated
at Georgetown University,
another Jesuit school where there
is an ongoing debate over how
the school should express its
Catholic identity.
Fairfield itself was the subject
of a U.S. Supreme Court decision
in the 1960s, Tilton vs. Richardson,
which centered on whether federal
funding for construction could go
to schools that display religious
symbols in the new building.
Fr. Victor Leeber, S.J., araem-ber
of Fairfield original faculty
and chairman emeritus of Modern
Languages, said he wasn't sur-prised
by the survey results.
"We took crucifixes out a long
time ago because of the ACLU
(American Civil Liberties Union)
and because of the federal funding
that built Bannow (Hall)," Fr.
Leeber said.
"We don't force our Catholi-cism
on the students and we cer-tainly
don't proselytize. But we
are, after all, a Jesuit and Catholic
university," he said.
The survey was con-ducted
Nov. 17-24, 1997, by
the Political Journalism class
in the English Department and
was cosponsored by The Mir-ror.
It was based on telephone
interviews with 203 randomly
selected students and had a
potential sampling error of
6.9 percent.
The survey found:
41 percent of stu-dents
said they agreed or
strongly agreed that cruci-fixes
should be placed in
classrooms at Fairfield. 51
percent opposed the idea and
eight percent had no opinion.
"I think it would be a good
idea, but it's not something
continued on pg. 4
Mirror Student
Survey
TODAY: Student
views on campus safety
and whether religion
plays too big a role on
campus.
NEXT WEEK:
Academics and student
advising: thumbs up or
down. Plus the most
popular and least
popular institutions on
campus.
FEB. 12: Students
sound off about the
quality of
The Mirror.
Inside this
week
Residence
Life responds
Get the scoop on the
townhouse basement
ban, see p. 3
Second semes-ter
success tips
How to get ahead,
see p. 5
The ultimate
mind eraser
Find out about the
seriousness of date rape
drugs, see p. 7
Angry
young man
writes
Senior says what
peeves him about the
Mirror, see p. 8 - 9
FUSA
candidates
supported
Students write in their
feelings about the candi-dates,
see p. 9
Moviemania
Check out the latest
releases on the big
screen, seep. 11 -12
Beardsley zoo
celebrates 75
Check out fun recreation
in Bridgeport, see p. 13.
A history of
hoops: meet
Dianne Nolan
Women's Basketball
coach profiled, see p. 15