Mirror - Vol. 05, No. 14 - December 10, 1981

              'The Image
of
Fairfield"
FAIRFIELD W 1 IMIRROR Nonprofit Organization
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Permit No. 34
Fairfield, Conn.
Volume 5, No. 14, December 10, 1981 Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut 06430 Incorporated 1977
EXPLOSION BLACKS
OUT UNIVERSITY
by Larry Turner and Thomas Moore
Last week's explosion of a main
transformer sent flames 60 feet in-to
the air and rattled windows near
the explosion. The resulting power
failure left a handful of people
stranded in elevators, and almost
caused a cancellation of the
basketball home opener against
the University of Bridgeport.
The explosion, the cause of
which is still unknown, originated
at the U.C.F. building where the
campus' main source of power is
located.
Two Fairfield Fire Department
trucks responded to the call, fin-ding
the explosion had all but
burnt itself out. The wires that re-mained
burning were quickly ex-tinguished
after a brief inspection
of the scene by a United Illuminat-ing
repairman who responded.
With the threat of fire removed,
there still remained the problem of
power. Although electrical power
was promptly resumed in a num-ber
of buildings (the Library, Ban-now
science building, South East,
Far East, Rec-plex and Campus
Center), the rest of the university
faced a blackout, with the excep-tion
of the Nursing Building,
which only had power on the first
floor, and the gym, which was run-ning
on half-power.
The estimated time of repair,
which involved replacing the gut-ted
transformer, was between 3
and 4 hours. The transformer was
one of three, and was the property
of United Illuminating.
The possible cause of the explo-sion
was originally thought to be a
surge of electricity too large for
the capacity of the transformer.
This caused the transformer to act
as a fuse or circuit-breaker cutting
off the overload. Since transform-ers
take in high voltage electricity
and transform it to a state of lower
voltage, this theory seemed to fit
the circumstances.
John J. Dunigan, the Director of
the Department of Heating and
Engineering at Fairfield U.,
thought otherwise. "In order to
check the voltage in the trans-former,"
Mr. Dunigan said, "you
have to check the terminator caps.
To do that you have to shut the
transformer down. Moisture can
get in the caps. If moisture gets in
the caps, that can cause an explo-sion."
Another problem arose out of
the incident. The Mirror was in-formed
that PCB's might have
been present in the oil in the
transformer. The oil acts as a
coolant in the transformer.
Bruce Neff, of the Wagner Co. (a
local testing facility) said he
thought "it was highly unlikely
that PCB's would be present" in
the oil, as all transformers were
sampled two years ago for the tox-ic
substances with a negative
result.
Nevertheless, a sample of the
oil was taken from the transformer
and brought to the Wagner Co. for
testing. The results proved to be
negative.
The main concern of University
officials was how the power-outage
would affect the basketball
team's season opener which was
to be televised over channel 49
CPTV. It was decided that the only
hope for the game was to bring in
and install a new transformer as
soon as possible. This was done,
and full power restored to the
campus at 8:15 P.M.
Mr. Dunigan stressed the
amount of what he called "univer-sity
teamwork" as being involved
in the handling of the crisis. Mr.
Dunigan was surprised at the
amount of flashlights the on-campus
students possessed, and
the helpful attitude that was evi-dent
during the blackout.
After the explosion last week the damaged transformer stands amidst
charred leaves. The force of the explosion blew the top off this
transformer and sent flames 60 feet into the air. [Photo by Duane Bailey]
Students Oppose
Shuttle Curtailment
by Dave Scott and Marguerite Downing
Hepatitis Cases Continue
by Thomas P. Moore
Two more cases of type A
Hepatitis were confirmed on
Thursday of last week. Tfjese are
the first cases confirmed since
November 16th, bringing the total
number of cases to 26 at Fairfield.
Dean Henry W. Krell, Director of
Student Services commented,
"These two new cases do not con-stitute
a new outbreak. The in-cubation
period of this disease is
14 to 40 days so these cases are
probably part of the original out-break.
The infirmary has inoculat-ed
1100 students, with this in
mind.
I don't see another Hepatitis out-break
occurring here."
Out of a group of five persons
tested,only two were stated as
positive. Two weeks ago four tests
were returned negative.
Fairfield's bout with this sick-ness
was publicized across the na-tion
in the last few weeks. It was
announced to the press on No-vember
11th.
Public Relations' Director Mr.
Murray Farber said, "Even with
these two new cases we have no
cases pending at the lab, so this
can't be deemed a new outbreak."
At a townhouse meeting held on
November 19, 1981, Mr. William
Schimpf, Dean of Student Ser-vices,
unexpectedly revealed that
the shuttle service to the beach
for the academic year 1982-83 will
be discontinued.
Mr. William Schimpf justified
his decision by citing the "ac-celerated
cost of the shuttle ser-vice"
and the declining number of
beach residents. As it stands, the
decision will affect a projected
number of 300 students.
The cost of runnning the shuttle
to the beach for these students
will be approximately $35,000, ac-cording
to Harry Stevens, Director
of Transportation. Schimpf feels
that the university should no long-er
subsidize these few students.
Schimpf stated, "Once we knew
that the townhouses were in
place, we knew we would not have
to subsidize the bus service to the
beach." According to Schimpf, the
university hopes to redirect these
funds toward financial aid pro-grams.
Upon hearing the decision Mike
Bentivegna, President of FUSA,
stated, "I was upset about the fact
that I was not officially informed
or made aware that such a deci-sion
was even being considered."
When questioned about any plans
to notify the student body, Dean
Schimpf replied, "I really had no
plan."
On November 5, 1976, the first
shuttle began as a weekend ser-vice
which the University Voice,
the campus newspaper, described
as attracting a feeble student
response. The shuttle service was
initiated by Schimpf for three
reasons. The most important
reason was, according to Schimpf,
to encourage students to move to
the beach. He had hoped that the
shuttle would also prevent isola-tion
and offer easy accessibility to
public transportation. Schimpf felt
that the continued shuttle service
from campus to town will preserve
two of the three original goals-
Schimpf pointed out that al-though
the university is firm on its
decision that it can no longer sub-sidize
the bus shuttle service to
the beach, it will consider alter-natives
brought up by the Universi-ty
Council. He was optimistic that
a compromise plan could be im-plemented.
Students, in reaction to elimina-tion
of the shuttle, passed a res-olution
through legislature sup-porting
the University Council's
opposition to the decision.
After the Save the Shuttle
meeting, held November 20, FUSA
sponsored a petition and survey
measuring student reaction.
At a University Council meeting
on Dec. 7, Dean Schimpf and
University Council members
strongly disagreed on figures per-taining
to money and overall use
of the beach shuttle. F.U.S.A had
recently conducted a survey regar-ding
the beach shuttle. Approx-imately
475 completed the ques-tionnaire
with 87% of those
students saying they rely on the
beach shuttle as their primary
means of transportation.
The actual number of students
depending upon the shuttle and
housing usage on the beach will be
developed by both the University
and F.U.S.A. The earliest possible
resolution to the subsidization of
the beach shuttle could occur early
next semester.
Lottery Decides
Townhouse Residents
w
; ■ ; -.
Town house construction continues at a fast pace in an effort to meet the August 15 deadline for completion.
Here surveyors outline the area of the complex. [Photo by Duane Bailey]
by Elizabeth A. Bartus
"Everything's going well,"
stated Mr. William Schimpf, Vice
President of Student Services,
when asked about the progress of
the town house construction.
The lottery for the fifty apart-ments,
each designed for four
students, was held Friday,
December 4th. According to Mrs.
Phyllis Fitzpatrick, Director of Stu-dent
Residences, 32 of the apart-ments
will be occupied by
Seniors, and 18 by Juniors. Two
hundred and eighty students ap-plied
for a townhouse apartment.
Applications were not received for
the handicapped apartments.
Commenting on the $1,035.00
per semester rent rate for the
twelve hundred square foot apart-ments,
Schimpf said, "The price is
as low as we can possibly make it
and still build quality housing." He
feels it is a competitive price.
Mr. Schimpf was originally
reluctant in supporting the
townhouse venture. He said that
he is "uncertain about what the
future will bring for Fairfield
University." However, due to the
fact that many owners are now
winterizing their homes for year-round
use, more student housing
is needed. This year, there are 87
less upperclassmen living on the
beach than last year. Schimpf ex-pects
the number to drop
significantly in the future.
Alternatives to the building of
townhouses included either
gradually converting Fairfield into
a commuter school, or decreasing
the student enrollment to 1,700
(the maximum number of students
that can be housed on campus
presently). They also considered
building or buying a complex for
students to reside in a neighbor-ing
town.
The project, which was begun
on November 17, has a projected
completion date of August 15,
1982. This will allow two weeks for
the apartments to be furnished
and prepared for the residents.