Mirror - Vol. 25, No. 13 - February 10, 2000

              The Mirror
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
Volume 25, Number 13 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, February 10, 2000
President Kelley confronts Papal document
By Lori Rizzo
NEWS EDITOR
On Monday, President Father
Kelley addressed the Academic Council
for the first
time during his presidency, in
hopes of allaying fears brought about by
the newest revision of Pope John Paul
IPs Apolstolic Constitution which de-scribes
the identity and mission of
Catholic colleges and universities.
"This document makes profes-sors
who are not Catholic a little uncom-fortable,"
explained Professor Lakeland,
chairman of the Academic Council. The
document contains sections that focus on
the increasing importance of Catholic
professors not only in religious studies,
but as an overall majority of a college or
university faculty. "The university
should strive to recruit and appoint
Catholic professors so that, to the extent
possible, those committed to the witness
of the faith will constitute a majority of
the faculty," the document says.
Still, Lakeland explained that
Father Kelley's message to faculty was
in fact "very optimistic." "He seemed to
think that the document would not ef-fect
the way we've always done things
at Fairfield," said Lakeland. Instead,
Father Kelley believed that the media
had focused on the negative aspects of
the document, causing more alarm than
necessary, Lakeland commented.
. However, not everyone's fears
of the future can be easily put to rest.
In fact, some see the document as much
more threatening. "What I'm afraid of
is that somewhere down the line there
will be some different president, some
different local bishop. I'm going to be
gone, everyone else in that room will
be gone, and all there is going to be is
that piece of paper," said Professor
Rosivach, another member of the Aca-demic
Council.
Instead, Rosivach pointed to
the importance of the university mis-sion
statement. The statement, which
can be found on the Fairfield web site
reads, "Fairfield is Catholic in both tra-dition
and spirit. It celebrates the God-given
dignity of every human person.
As a Catholic university it welcomes
those of all beliefs and traditions who
share its concerns for scholarship, jus-tice,
truth, and freedom, and it values
the diversity which their membership
brings to the university community."
Photo: Nick Ouimet
Catholic influence not intended to increase, Father Kelley said Monday
Rosivach, a non-Catholic
who has been a member of the Fairfield
community for 35 years, feels that the
mission statement should not be ig-nored
or forgotten in light of the Pope's
document. "I have been doing my
share to make this place what it is," he
said.
Lakeland agrees that the non-
Catholic contribution to the university
is extremely important.
"Some of the people who
are most supportive of the university
mission and ideals are not Catholic, and
there's no guarantee that because a per-son
is Catholic they do that," he said. "The
document does not say that all people
should be Catholic," Lakeland said.
However, the document does
stress the importance of a growing Catho-lic
influence, not only in faculty, but else-
See "Professors" on pg. 4 Is the keg kicked?
By Nicole Tramontano
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
New regulations concerning the
drinking policy at Fairfield University
were instituted in fall 1999, and more
changes could take place for next semes-ter,
banning both kegs and large bottles
over one quart in size.
The Substance Abuse Task Force,
here on campus, submitted a proposal on
the alcohol policies to be reviewed by
the University Council, according to Jane
Nolan, formerly a Council member and
currently Vice President of the Student
Beach Resident Association.
Although submitted last spring,
only part of the proposal could be re-viewed
until now. The first part was put
into effect last semester and can be seen
in the point system and the rules regard-ing
"alcohol paraphernalia," Nolan said.
The second part of the proposal would
determine the quantity of alcohol per-mitted
on campus.
"The Substance Abuse Task
Force submitted a proposal to limit con-tainers
any larger than one quart (of al-cohol)
on-campus ...basically to stop
binge drinking," Nolan said. Kegs and
other large alcohol bottles would be
prohibited.
One student felt that the univer-
Photo: Nick Ouimet
Students face alcohol policies on-campus
sity would be making a mistake if this
policy was enacted. "If they want to keep
the people on campus, that's not the way
to go," Donovan Wiedmann '01, said.
Ultimately, Wiedmann felt that the
regulations would not protect students.
"Sheltering people isn't going to help them
deal with it (drinking) later on in life,"
Wiedmann said.
Gwen Vendley, dean of students,
said that there had been no discussion of
banning kegs on campus. "I don't know
of any changes," Vendley said regarding
the alcohol policy for upcoming semes-ters.
However, Vendley is a member of
the University Council, who will be vot-ing
on the proposal in the future.
Vendley did think that the changes
already made had been effective, espe-cially
in making things clearer with the
point system. "I think they (the new poli-cies)
have had some impact."
Even if the council votes in favor of
the proposal, President Father Aloysius
Kelley would also have to approve it. "I
don't think it will pass," Nolan said.
This Week... Campus Life:
Valentine's
Day gift idea
see page 7
Commentary:
Is Fairfield a
boring place to be?
see pages 10-12
A&E:
Music world
prepares for
Grammys
see page14
Sports:
Catch up with
Stags basketball
see pages 18-20