Mirror - Vol. 24, No. 12 - February 11, 1999

              Volume 24 Number 12 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, February 11, 1999
Senate seeks recognition
By Megan Loiaconi
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Fairfield's student
Senate, led by a new presi-dent
and an all-female
executive board, hopes to
play a more active role in
campus politics and avoid
the reputation of being a
"rubber stamp" for the
more visible FUSA
Cabinet.
"One of the great things is that
this session of Senate is not the same old
generic clique. We have new faces, dif-ferent
ideas and different views," said
Tracy Boyd '00, who was named Senate
president last week. This will also be able
to provide for a wider scope and broader
base of knowledge and experience.
"Many people see Senate as a
rubber stamp of approval. I would like to
see us have more credit," said Boyd. "We
also need to make things more unified and
get more input from more people," said
Boyd.
Many students do not realize
what Senate accomplishes and is respon-sible
for. Senate oversees the Cabinet and
works as a system of checks and balances
to ensure Cabinet members are fulfilling
their responsibilities and that jobs are get-ting
done right.
"Senate is involved in bettering
the quality of life for students," said Boyd.
"We also review the constitutions of all
clubs and make sure the University will
benefit from their services before approv-ing
them."
Senate elections are held once a
year at the same time as FUSA presiden-
Continued on pg. 3
photo: Nick Ouimet
Tracy Boyd, '01, president-elect orFUSA Sen-ate
is determined to change her organizations
image as a "rubber stamp.",
Are juniors always getting jipped?
By Brian Huben
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
If you're anything like Kate
Sullivan, '01, then you had looked for-ward
to moving off campus to the beach
since your first day of freshman year. If
not, you're probably like Joe Ciavardini,
'01, and want to get out of the dorms and
into the townhouses.
Deciding where to live in jun-ior
year is a decision that students begin
to consider sometime in freshman year.
Everyone knows that in order to get a
beach house, never mind a good one, you
have to look early. This leaves students
with the dilemma of signing a lease be-fore
they're offered off-campus housing
by the University, or missing out on get-ting
a good house.
This year, as is typical of most
years at Fairfield, there are a lot of dis-appointed
students.
Some 58 juniors, in addition to
those already living at the beach, were
granted off-campus housing, but only 90
of the 155 sophomores who applied for it
were released from campus.
Fran Koerting, associate dean of
"When I came here I was under the impression
that I was guaranteed a townhouse if I wanted
one. Now I'll be spending myjunior year in the
same dorm as freshmen,"
Joe Ciavardini, '01.
Residence Life, said that they won't know
how many more students they can let off
until May, when they have a reasonable
estimate of the size of next year's fresh-man
class. Until then, the remaining 65
will have to sweat it out through the spring.
Sullivan, like many other sopho-mores,
took the chance and signed a lease
in the fall with the expectations of getting
off-campus. However, shortly after return-ing
from the winter break, she found out that
she and her friends didn't get approved. This
means that, as of now, they will have to
spend their junior year in the dorms and,
even worse, they will have to pay rent for
both the beach house and the dorm room.
Koerting said things would be
Continued on pg. 3
Fr. Kelley
takes on the
beach
By Dana Ambrosini
NEWS EDITOR
The University task force
convened last fall to address the prob-lems
at the beach and related issues
has presented its findings on sched-ule
to President Aloysius P. Kelley,
S.J., but members of the force are re-maining
mum about its contents.
The ball is now in the
president's court, and Douglas Whit-ing,
associate vice president for pub-lic
relations at Fairfield, confirms that
Fr. Kelley is deliberating on the re-port
now, "following some pretty in-tense
deliberations on the part of the
task force."
The task force, led by Asso-ciate
Vice President for Development
Frederic Wheeler, met with people in
the University, the first selectman
(Kenneth Flatto), members of the
Fairfield Beach Road Association, and
representatives of the Fairfield Police
Department. In all the group inter-viewed
approximately a dozen indi-viduals
and solicited the written opin-ions
of 10 to 20 more.
Announced last October by
Fr. Kelley, the task force was con-vened
after differences between stu-dent
beach renters and yearlong beach
residents came to a head last fall. The
committee made its report at the start
of the semester, but Fr. Kelley had
been away at various collegiate con-ferences
in Washington D.C. for most
of the month of January. Whiting said
that while there is not set date for Fr.
Kelley's announcement about the re-port,
it will be made sometime within
the semester.
"There is no timetable at this
point," said Whiting, but he believes
that the president will announce his
decisions about the report within
"weeks rather than months."
Members of the task force
were charged not to reveal any por-tion
of their findings until the presi-
Inside this edition
An analysis of
last week's
election,
see p.2
Warding off
the Fairfield
flu,
seep. 7
Election
aftermath,
see what is on your
mind on p. 9
Starving
artists serves
up a winner,
see p. 11
Q & A with
A.D. Eugene
Doris,
see p. 16