Mirror - Vol. 28, No. 06 - October 17, 2002

              SPRAY PLAY
New broadway show "Hairspray"
offers fun flashback fantasy
Page 11
STAYING SAFE
Self defense class teaches
methods of personal protection
Page 7
fnirs m
Fairfield
October 17,2002- Vol. MflfeROR University
mcation
TH residents grouchy over $4500 fine
BY JESSICA HOLMBERG
"Take out the papers and the
trash, or you don't get no spendin'
cash," has become the phrase that
pays when it comes to the ongo-ing
trash problem at the Town-houses.
Due to excessive garbage,
Laura Cantrell, associate director
of Residence Life, sent out a memo
to all Townhouse residents regard-ing
the problem and informing
them that they will be assessed a
total fine of no more than $4500
for the most current incident.
After all the possible fines,
what is a student to do? "Get all
that garbage out of sight, or you
don't go out Friday night. Yakety
yak," according to the Coasters'
famous oldies' song.
'There has been some heinous
stuff that had to be picked up,"
Cantrell said. "Students need to
take some pride in the area up
there."
Garbage is picked up by the
Kennedy Center, a center for men-tally
challenged adults and by
Campus Operations.
"This is not the image we
want them to take away from Fair-field
University," Cantrell said.
"If students can't remove the
garbage, we have to do it," said
Gary Stephenson, director of
Housing. "Walk your garbage to
the dumpsters."
The biggest problem is the
excessive amount of trash, piled
out in front of the dumpsters,
which may accrue a $40,000 total
fine by the end of the school year.
According to the Department
of Residence Life, there have been
three instances where trash has
Danny Schwartman/The Mirror
Trash talk: The school does not want the property around the townhouses to be littered with trash.
However, students take offense to the $4500 fine that they were assessed for property cleanup.
been piled in front of dumpsters,
when the dumpsters were actually
empty.
Students complain, however,
that the dumpsters are constantly
full, and there is nowhere to throw
the trash.
"The university should real-ize
that with an extra person liv-ing
in each townhouse this year
that there will be more garbage,"
Rich Gruffi, '03, said. "They
should add more dumpsters. The
garbage has to go somewhere."
Cantrell admits the fine is a
"little excessive," but she is trying
to gain cooperation from students.
"I wanted to take a proactive
approach with community dam-age,"
Cantrell said. "If this type
of situation is continued at the
same rate, and if all the bills are
correct, then we're talking $73 a
person at most."
The $4500 fine, however, is
still under negotiation, according
to Gary Stephenson.
After an agreement between
Campus Operations and the De-partment
of Residence Life to fine
students for the trash problem,
Campus Operations sent a bill to
the Department of Residence Life.
Included in this bill is what seems
to be the hourly rate for collecting
the garbage, in addition to a fine
set by Campus Operations.
According to Stephenson, it is
not the responsibility of Campus
Operations to allocate certain fines
to students. Fines can only be de-termined
and set forth by the Dean
of Students.
"Fines come from the Office
of the Dean of Students,"
Stephenson said. "It is this office
that is responsible to charge fines
to students because we deal with
student behavior. It is not.up to
Campus Operations to decide on
fines for students. We are having
them resubmit the bill to us."
Upon the collection of fines,
the money goes directly into stu-dent
programs, according to
Stephenson, which is another rea-son
why only the Dean of Students
can collect money.
"Otherwise, there is an ac-countability
issue," Stephenson
said. "Where would the money go
then? We put it right back into stu-dent
programs."
Officials say that students
need to be conscious of their liv-ing
area and to clean up after them-selves.
"If you see a red cup on
the ground, you can pick it up,"
Cantrell noted.
Students should police each
other as a community and share the
responsibility to fix the behavior,
said Stephenson.
Some students recognize that
even that is not a good alternative.
"It's not my responsibility or
even sanitary to clean up after each
other," Gruffi said. "Have the
SEE "STUDENTS" ON P. 5
FUSA develops plans to be more organized, benefit students
BY CHRIS ZEITZ
DONOGHUE
LETTER
FUSA president
on gov't progress
Page 13
With another November election
approaching, there is little need for a
reminder that politicians often make
campaign promises that go unfulfilled.
The promises of the elected members
ofFUSA are for the most part being ful-filled.
However, the organization has
difficulty with distributing this informa-tion
to the students.
Taylor Morrison, '05, who trans-ferred
to Fairfield last semester, said
that he only heard about FUSA during
the election campaigns last year.
One FUSA initiative that will be-gin
on Tuesday is a monthly Open Fo-rum
program. The first program of the
Open Forum will be devoted to bridg-ing
the communication gap between
FUSA and some students on campus.
This program will feature the lead-ers
of FUSA addressing any students
who attend and answering questions
afterwards, according to FUSA Presi-dent
Karen Donoghue. When this was
mentioned to Morrison, he said that he
was pleased with the program and the
opportunity to express his opinions with
members of FUSA.
"We don't know all the answers,"
Donoghue said while explaining the
need for FUSA to hold it's own forum.
This forum will serve as an opportu-nity
to get feedback from the students,
she added.
This program is one of several ini-tiatives
that FUSA has been working on
since this summer. While campaigning
for the FUSA presidency, Donoghue
promised to increase communication
among the branches of FUSA and help
students with the process of academic
advising. On election night, she also
said she would work to improve bus
transportation.
Two months into the academic
year, FUSA and Donoghue have ad-dressed
all of these issues.
Donoghue has begun a monthly
SEE "ADVISING" ON P. 4