Mirror - Vol. 23, No. 13 - February 05, 1998

              IRROR
Volume 23 Number 13 The Image of Fairfield
Piagentini wins FUSA election
Dana Ambrosini
Assistant News Editor
"As of this moment I
feel on top of the world," said a
very happy Mike Piagentini mo-ments
after being notified that
he had been elected as next year's
FUSA president.
Piagentini obtained 705
votes, making him the winner of
the highly contested race. Brian
"Brock" De Montreux came in
second with 485 votes while
Brian Mello received 144.
"It was a strong turn-out,
much stronger than last
year," election commissioner
Jerry Schlichting '00 said.
Piagentini was quick to
enthusiastically thank those who
helped his effort and supported
him, many ofwhomhe said went
out of their way to assist in his
campaign. "To know that the
students supported me and be-
Playing
by the
rules?
Two candidates
cited for campaign
violations
Christine Hamel
Editor-in-Chief
With each election,
there are rules and guidelines
when it comes to campaign lit-erature
and the distribution of it
to the students. Two candidates
for FUSA President, Brian
"Brock" De Montreux and
Michael Piagentini, were fined
last week due to violating cam-paign
policies.
De Montreux was found
guilty of distributing campaign
literature before midnight on Jan.
28 . He was seen a week before
passing out campaign literature
to selected students in the resi-dence
halls. His fine was not
being allowed to mass mail his
campaign literature.
continued on pg. 4
Election winner Mike Piagentini
lieved in me enough to win, I will
never forget," Piagentini said.
Piagentini also thanked his fellow
running mates that he said that he
has the utmost respect for them.
De Montreux also
thanked all ofhis supporters. When
asked about future activities, he
stated that while he has no
particular plans right now he
will definitely be getting in-volved
with the school. As
for now, he said that he will
be taking a "long rest period."
Mello promised to
keep pushing the
Multicultural issue, the bedrock
of his campaign platform. He
said that he considered the cam-paign
a success and reiterated
an earlier statement, thatjust by
running he was able to bring
important issues to the fore-front.
Mello also wanted his
campaign to serve as an en-couragement
to future prospec-tive
candidates. "If I could run,
anybody can run," Mello said.
Now that the election
is over, Piagentini noted that
his first step will be to work
with current FUSA president
Chris Cipriano to make the long
and important transition ofpass-ing
the torch. Regarding his
future role as president of
FUSA, Piagentini said that he
is excited and is going in with
enthusiasm, and a new and dy-namic
outlook and approach to
the student association.
High marks for teaching,
advising on campus
Kristen Sullivan
A&E Editor
More than two thirds of
Fairfield students gave good marks
to the quality of teachiing in the
core courses and in their major,
and most students also gave posi-tive
marks to the quality of advis-ing
on campus, according to the
first annual Mirror Student Sur-vey.
Students said the small
class size at Fairfield and their
interaction with teachers contrib-uted
to the high quality ofacadem-ics
at the school.
"I'm a religious studies
major and I've found the teaching
to be really great, especially in my
major," Francis McCabe '98 said.
"My professors are really knowl-edgeable
and it shows."
Economics major
Bridget Keough '00 agreed. "I'm
really learning a lot in my core
courses, and ordinarily I probably
wouldn't even take some of those
classes," Keough said.
The survey was based on
telephone responses from a ran-dom
sample of 203 students.
The survey, conducted Nov.
17-24, 1997, has a potential
sampling error of 6.9 per-cent.
The survey found:
— 91 percent of students
rated the overall quality of
teaching in core courses as
good or very good. Eight
percent rated it as poor or
very pOor and one percent
was undecided.
— 76 percent said the
quality of teaching in their
major was good or very good,
Five percent said it was poor
and 19 percent were unde-cided.
— 68 percent said the
quality of faculty advising
was good or very good, 31
percent said it was poor or
very poor, and only two per-cent
had no opinion.
Business school
student Samantha Farrell '00
said the professors at Fairfield
"are excellent. They incorpo-rate
personality into their teach-ing,
which makes everything
10 times more interesting. And
if something is interesting, you
continued on pg. 3
Mirror Student
Survey
LAST WEEK: Stu-dent
views on campus
safety and whether
religion plays too big a
role on campus
TODAY: How good
are Fairfield's academ-ics
and advising? Plus
the most popular institu-tions
on campus, on pg.
4
NEXT WEEK: Stu-dents
sound off about
the quality of the Mirror
Thursday, February 5, 1998
Inside this
week
Chase on
campus
Find out details and
how to keep your car safe,
see pg. 3
How to dress
for success
Fashion tips for the
interview, see p. 5
Celebrate
Black History
Month
see p. 6
Mirror bashing
addressed
Students say how
they feel about the
Mirror, see p. 8 - 9
TH basement
banning
Staff writer addresses
Residence Life's new ban,
seep. 10
Starving
Artists
Find out about a new
art group on campus,
see p. 12
"Titanic" still
on top
See what the fuss is all
about, see p. 13
Men's basket-ball
struggles
What's plaguing our
team?
The answer is on p. 14