Mirror - Vol. 26, No. 18 - March 22, 2001

              OSCAR PREVIEW
Oscar picks offered plus a
look back at the movies of 2000
Pages8and9
A QUICK EXIT
The NCAA tourney eluded the
men after a loss in the MAAC
Page 11
Fairfield
March 22,2001 MIRROR University
Volume 26, Number 18
Jam
CLAMMED UP
ByFrankWashkuch
A lawsuit filed by nine year-round residents at
Fairfield Beach has brought the ongoing war with
Fairfield students to new highs and has sent Clam
Jam, possibly the most revered and anticipated Fair-field
tradition to the brink of its extinction.
FUSA president Kevin Hayes said
he was utterly disappointed by
the legal effort to block the
2001 Clam Jam, which
"- was expected to at-fi
tract thousands of
I students to Fairfield
: Beach on the last
weekend of April.
Hayes also said
! that last year's Clam Jam
I was considered a success by
all reasonable parties involved
while also raising thousands of dollars
for the police overtime needed to patrol
the event.
"The student body should know that
the year-round residents don't hate us,"
Hayes said. "We've made great strides
with year-round residents in the past
year, but it's the same people who are
never satisfied. It's a shame that the stu-dent
body will get this impression of all
year-round residents."
This latest shot was fired by a group
of year-round residents from Fairfield
Beach and Reef roads on Friday, March
9, against the Lantern Point Association,
the body that has jurisdiction over the
area where Clam Jam takes place. The
group cited loud noise, traffic problems,
large amounts of
garbage and stu-dents
urinating on
their lawns as the basis for their suit.
If upheld in court, an injunction
would be filed that would prevent the
Lantern Point Association from "main-taining
a nuisance" on Lantern Point,
according to The Connecticut Post.
The plaintiffs stated that the Lan-tern
Point Association "has permitted
repeated and continuous violations be
committed of the laws of the state of
Connecticut and ordinances of the Town
of Fairfield upon the premises," accord-ing
to The Connecticut Post.
See "STUDENTS" on p. 4
Townhouses tough to get
By Sean Hayes
ASST. COMMENTARY
EDITOR
With fewer individuals ap-plying
to live off campus, mem-bers
of the class of 2003 found
that obtaining a townhouse for
their junior year was going to
be extremely difficult.
Amid the strengthening of
regulations at the beach and
swirling rumors that obtaining
off campus status was going to
be very difficult, the housing
lottery this year for townhouses
was very competitive and
crowded.
The housing lottery at Fair-field
University is completely
random. A group of students
register to live together for the
following year and are assigned
a group number to determine
the order in which they pick
their living arrangements.
Members of the class of
2003 with lottery number 70 or
better were permitted to attend
MARCH MADNESS
HITS FAIRFIELD
Women's
Basketball gained an
at-large bid to the
NCAA Tournament.
but fell to I tah.
See Page 12 for
coverage
the townhouse/apartment lot-tery,
yet the final townhouse
went to lottery number 47.
Many students were unhappy
with the results, as was evident
at the sophomore townhouse
lottery.
"This is ridiculous," said
Mark Sheridan ('03), "There are
a good 50 extra people here with
numbers above 70, and even
those above 40 know their
chances aren't very good. There
just isn't enough room in the
townhouses."
"Everyone who doesn't get
a townhouse complains,"
Sheridan stated. "Everybody
who does (get a townhouse)
seems to be fine with the lottery.
We need some sort of merit sys-tem
so everyone knows where
they stand and why."
Gary Stephenson, director
of Housing, has said that some
sort of merit system based on
"academic or social success"
has been discussed in the past
with Henry Humphreys (former
director of Housing) and the stu-dent
senate. Yet no changes to
the lottery have occurred in the
past year.
There are some who be-lieve
that a different sort of lot-tery
might be better for the fu-ture.
Fran Koerting, associate
dean of Residence Life, be-lieves
that a random lottery is
fair, yet "the only thing I would
like to see is (excluding) repeat
offenders. While freshman or
sophomores, they haven't
proven they can handle inde-pendent
living."
Zach Newswanger,
assistant director of residence
life, believes a merit-base lot-tery
is something "...we should
look into. I definitely think
there are some things to look
at."
Yet he warns that this could
create a problem far worse than
some surly juniors living in
Claver. "What happens when
you base the lottery on that (ju-dicial
or academic standing) is
that those with good grades end
up in one building and all the
others in another," Newswanger
said. "You could lose a whole
building."
Other schools use a
variety of approaches:
•Duke University uses a
completely random lottery for
housing, yet gives students a
"blocking option." In applying
this to Fairfield University, what
this would mean is allowing
those who do not get a town-house
the possibility of request-ing
two or three neighboring
rooms on Campion ground,
Regis two, or wherever they can
"block" their future living
space.
•The University of Dayton
has a lottery system that is much
more akin to a merit-based sys-tem.
Groups of four, five or six
enter the lottery system, and the
cumulative total of the group's
credit hours will determine
See "SOME" on p. 4