Mirror - Vol. 24, No. 02 - October 01, 1998

              FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
MIRROR
Volume 24 Number 2
The Image of Fairfield Thursday, October 1, 1998
Alumni Weekend stirs controversy
Michael Keegan
Staff Writer &
Dana Ambrosini
News Editor
In the wake of the Alumni Week-end
celebrations at the beach, year-round
beach residents are once again threaten-ing
to sue both the town and the Univer-sity.
An article in The Connecticut
Post stated that a lawsuit would be based
on breaches of peace and tranquility and
losses in property value. Town residents
are meeting this Thursday at Penfield Pa-vilion
II to reiterate their complaints
against student residents and constant par-ties.
FUSA President Michael
Piagentini responded to the latest devel-opment
in the ongoing beach saga, "I will
be going down to the meeting in support
photo: Mirror archives
Students renting at the beach are once again at the center of controversy.
cerns of the town residents and the prob-lems
they have towards the beach."
Piagentini expressed outrage
tide, as well. "There were nowhere
near 1500-2000 students or 55 kegs [as
quoted in the Post]," said Piagentini, in
of the students and to listen to the con- about inaccuracies quoted in the Post ar- reference to the Alumni party.
Piagentini also pointed out that
while it was conjectured that many students
attending the main party were underaged,
the celebration is traditionally held for
Alumni and therefore majority of attend-ees
were not underaged.
Yet, parties weren't the only event
this weekend, Alumni Weekend's other tra-ditional
events were considered largely a
success, officially beginning with the Ath-letic
Hall of Fame Dinner on Friday. The
dinner honors former Fairfield University
athletes and coaches.
This year's inductees included
soccer player James McEIderry '93, bas-ketball
player Ralph Rehn '75, swimmer
Jim Turne '91 and Softball player Kim
Zagajiski Gallaghar '91. The University
also gave former men's tennis coach Dr.
Joseph Grassi a Special Service Award.
continued on pg. 3
5 million donated to renovate library
Brian Huben
Staff Writer
Fr. Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J. an-nounced
last week that $5 million has
been donated to the Nyselius Library by
a Fairfield alumnus and trustee to fund
projects which will help to virtually
double library space on campus.
Joseph DiMenna, a 1980 gradu-ate
and managing director of Zweig,
DiMenna Associated LLC, a New York
financial services firm, and his wife
Maureen, are the donators of the largest
gift Fairfield has ever received from an
alumnus.
The $5 million donation will en-able
the library to add a major addition,
which will double the library's space, and
also completely renovate the existing li-brary,
which is 30 years old.
"This new library will become
the intellectual heart of campus," said
University Librarian James Estrada.
"Given its prominent location, it also will
become the signature academic building
of the university. The library will com-bine
the most desirable aspects of tra-ditional
academic libraries with the most
up to date equipment and software
needed to access the rich resources of
today's on-line information environ-ment."
The expansion, which is
scheduled to be completed in the spring
of 2001, will include a multimedia cen-ter
and a computer lab with an adjacent
faculty resources lab. It will expand the
library's collection of print and non-print
information and house instruc-tional
facilities for teaching users how
to find information, conduct research
and utilize the most effective uses of
various information.
"I think it's great that the Uni-versity
received the money to improve
the library," said Brian McGarvey, '02.
"Compared to other schools I looked at
last year, Fairfield's library was inferior
to most of them. Hopefully the im-provements
will change that."
The library also plans to in-crease
the number of reading spaces to
900 and add lounge and study carrels.
Estrada said that the study carrels will
be wired so that students may bring their
laptop computers to the library. A cafe
and vending area will also be con-structed
and students will be able to
bring their computers there too. The cafe
is expected to remain open throughout
the library hours. Students can also ex-pect
a leisure reading area which would
include couches for students to relax on.
Estrada said the library will
also include many more group study
rooms because teachers have been as-signing
more group research projects
recently, and students need a place in
which to meet and do their research.
These rooms will all have wired com-puters
as well.
The University hired The
Stubbins Associates (TSA) of Cam-bridge,
Mass., in June, to design the new
library facilities and have been meeting
with them quite frequently since. Other
TSA projects include The Ronald
Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., and
the Pusey Library at Harvard University.
Work on the library's new addi-tion
is expected to begin in the spring of
1999, just after commencement, and con-struction
is planned to be completed by the
fall of 2000. Upon completion of the new
addition, renovations to the existing library
will begin. It will be a complete renova-tion
which will include moving the depart-ments
to more effective positions. This will
mean placing sections of reference materi-als
closer together so students do not have
to go from floor to floor to research one
topic.
The project, which is expected to
be completed by Spring of 2001, will cost
about $15.3 million total, Estrada said.
"We're very lucky to have Mr. DiMenna
donate such a generous gift which will
cover almost 1/3 of the costs of the new
library."
"Maureen and I are excited about
the opportunity to contribute to an enhance-continued
on pg. 3
Inside this edition.
SOB gets new
home and
Dean,
see page 3
Campus Life
takes on an in-ternational
flair,
see pages 5-7
Flatto con-cerned
over
beach
behavior,
see page 8
Fairfield
rocks:
Samples out-door
concert a
hit, see page 11
A royal
victory for
football,
see page 16