Mirror - Vol. 28, No. 10 - November 14, 2002

              Fairfield
November 14, 2002 - Voi, 28, Iss. 10 MIRROR University
Celebratinp hlii anon
Could the TH basements be locked?
BY CHRIS DONATO
Can you imagine having a townhouse
party without a basement? Well, you might
want to start.
"I couldn't imagine a social life at the
townhouses without the basement," said
John Doney '04. "It is a crucial part of the
house. They might as well put five people
in an oversized dorm room if they decide to
lock it up."
The administration in charge of Resi-dence
Life has begun discussing plans to
deal with the current misuse of townhouse
basement space, that is designated specifi-cally
for storage.
Recently 74 students were found in the
basement of one townhouse, which is in vio-lation
of fire codes and various other
townhouse rules. "Seventy-four people in
the basement of a townhouse scares me to
death because there may be a fire or a fight
and how would everyone get out using the
rickety stair cases," said Laura Cantrell, as-sociate
director of Residence Life.
"If this behavior continues to be a prob-lem
and a safety concern then I can't see
why in the future we wouldn't lock them
[the basements] off or invest money to ac-tually
have them finished," said Jonathan
Stark, residence area coordinator of the
townhouse and apartments. "Students are
abusing their privileges of having a base-ment."
"We have to be proactive if we want to
save lives" said Allison Lebonnitte, resi-dence
hall coordinator in Jogues, who is also
SEE "TH" ON P. 4
Bridget Smith/The Mirror
Soon a memory: Seniors may soon forget
this sight if the basements are padlocked.
Despite missteps, weekendgatherings considered a success
BY JESSICA HOLMBERG
Most students were satisfied
with the annual 200 Nights cel-ebration
for seniors, but some left
the event upset after, among other
incidents, Student Beach Resident
Association Co-President Tim
Harper '03 made some question-able
comments during a speech
early in the evening.
At the
EDITORIAL
Can you
print that?
Page 15
beginning of
the evening,
SBRA offi-cials
spoke in
front of the
large crowd
to thank everyone for the excellent
turnout and good time.
Harper addressed the seniors
in a short speech, and added, "No-tice
one thing, and one thing
only...you may know some people
or you may not, but I'll tell you
one thing...there's no fucking los-ers
here."
Many students were outraged
by Harper's remark.
"I think it is an inappropriate
comment for a student leader to
make," said Karen Donoghue '03,
FUSA President. "He should have
thought twice before saying that.
A lot of people were not there be-
Mixed crowd: Opinions varied on the success of the 200 Nights event this year.
Amy Womack/The Mirror
cause of the money issue, not be-cause
of who they are."
Other students agreed.
"I really enjoyed the event but
I do think it was irresponsible of
him because he is a representative
of a whole organization," said
Nicole Sparling '03, class of 2003
president.
"It was not the smartest thing
to say at the time>" said Colette
Landers '03, SBRA co-president.
"People who weren't there
wouldn't understand. We had a lot
of stress to plan the event. We
didn't even know if it was going
to come together, and the comment
was more of the 'heat of the mo-ment'
type."
SBRA officials reported that
Harper's comment was not di-rected
towards any particular stu-dents,
nor was it meant to insult
anyone.^ It was said in celebration
of the event, according to SBRA
officials.
Harper defended his com-ments
when interviewed this week.
"There were no fights, and the
people there wouldn't cause prob-lems,"
he said. "But I like to feed
fuel to the fire. I love being an
asshole. I knew everyone there,
and they probably know me."
\
SEE "UNDERAGE" ON P. 7
Fairfield s bishop speaks out against same-sex marriages
BY ASHLEIGH EGAN
Bishop William Lori of the
Bridgeport Dioceses came to
Fairfield University this past Sun-day
to hold mass and speak to edu-cators
and students but failed to
mention the controversy that now
surrounds him concerning a letter
he recently sent out to all churches
in the dioceses.
This letter urged all Roman
Catholics in the dioceses to sign a
petition opposing same-sex mar-riages
after their masses this
month. It was to be read to all
Fairfield County Catholics attend-ing
last weekend's masses.
In this letter Lori claims that,
"same-sex legislation will violate
our civil rights." He quotes Pope
John Paul II in saying, "[Marriage]
is [for] the well being of the
spouses and the procreation and
upbringing of children. Only such
a union can be recognized and rati-fied
as a marriage in society."
What Lori failed to mention
in this letter is that, if civil mar-riage
becomes available to same-sex
couples, religious institutions
will still have the right to deny
marriage to whomever they deem
unfit or undesirable, as they do al-ready.
A legislative decision can-not
change the rules of a particu-lar
faith.
Although Fairfield University
has a chapel on campus, the uni-versity
did not receive this letter.
The university did not receive a
letter because it is not considered
SEE "ORGANIZATIONS" ON P. 4
Students
help local
economy
BY CHRIS ZEITZ
You and your friends havejust
finished a midterm and you're
wondering what to do. You decide
to go to your car and get something
to eat at Mike's Pizza. Before you
get there, however, you know that
you need to get gas and you want
to buy a new book at Borders.
Every day, in situations just
like this, Fairfield University stu-dents
contribute to the economy of
the town and the surrounding com-munities.
Konstantinos Mentis of
Mike's Pizza estimated that up to
$4,000 a week comes from the stu-dent
population of the university.
He was cautious with his estimate
but said students were a "good part
of the business" for the restaurant.
John Mercer, the owner of
Dominos, said 25 percent of his
business came from students at the
university. In terms of dollars and
cents, this is about $125,000 an-nually,
said Mercer. When classes
are not in session, Mercer said that
business drops about $2,000 -
$3,000 per week.
Though the economy is
slumping and this has affected
Mercer's business, he estimated
that the presence of the university
is responsible for employing eight
of his drivers. He said he needs
six drivers just for Friday and' Sat-urday
nights.
"It is very difficult to quantify
the funds that are going to local
stores, restaurants (and) gas sta-
SEE "BUSINESSES" ON P. 8