Mirror - Vol. 01, No. 03 - October 6, 1977

              Nonprofit Organization
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PAID
Permit No. 34
Fairfield, Conn.
200 Shovels
Break Gym
Ground
Today
Groundbreaking ceremonies for.
the long awaited 2.7 million dollar
recreation complex will be held
today at high noon. But this time
there's a twist. Groundbreaking
will not be performed by the Presi-dent
Fitzgerald tenderly scraping
the Earth with a gold shovel.
Groundbreaking today will be 200
students wielding shovels and at-tired
in uniforms representative of
every sport that will be performed
in the complex.
James Fessler, director of pub-lic
relations, is helping to organize
the event. He urges all students to
come out today at noon to parti-cipate
in the groundbreaking.
FUSA, knowing more about the
student mind than Fessler, also
urged students to come out and
show their support, but they also
announced that beer will be avail-able
after the groundbreaking.
The two-story, 65,000 square
foot recreational complex will
provide a 25 meter swimming pool
which can be used for recreation
as well as meets, four courts
which can be used interchange-ably
for volleyball, badminton,
tennis and basketball, four hand-ball
courts which can also be used
for squash, an indoor track, a
multi-purpose room, and whirl-pool,
saunas and locker room fa-cilities.
Construction work is expected
to get underway this month, with
Tom I inson-H awley-Patterson,
Inc., of Trumbull, serving as the
contractor. The building is slated
to be completed by January 1,
1979.
The new facility will be used es-sentially
for recreational pur-poses,
explained Fr. Fitzgerald,
while the existing Fairfield Uni-versity
Gymnasium will house
most indoor spectator sports.
Presently the gymnasium is uti-lized
for varsity, club and intra-mural
sports as well as for recrea-tional
purposes by the more than
2,700 full-time male and female
undergraduate students at the uni-versity
and the more than 800
male students who attend Fair-field
College Preparatory School,
which is also located on the cam-pus.
The new complex will be of
sand-colored brick and will be
constructed in a similar architec-tural
mode to blend with existing
buildings in the center of the 200-
acre Fairfield campus, Fr. Fitz-gerald
pointed out.
Architects for the recreational
complex are Fletcher Thompson,
Inc., of Bridgeport.
The university's Board of Trus-tees
had authorized construction
of the new complex at its Septem-ber
23 annual meeting. The build-ing
will be erected through favor-able
long-term funding which was
negotiated last Thursday, the
president explained.
A zoning easement for the fa-cility
had earlier been obtained
from the Town of Fairfield.
When completed, the new rec-reational
complex, along with the
present gymnasium, will alleviate
the overcrowding which has re-,
suited in the gym as enrollments
over the years have increased in
the university's full-time under-graduate
and also college pre-paratory
school ranks, Fr. Fitz-gerald
said.
The recreational complex and
gymnasium will adequately han-dle
the demand for both student
body recreation purposes as well
as the demands for men's and
women's varsity, club and intra-mural
indoors sports for the fore-seeable
future, he concluded.
THE
FAIRFIELD
Vol. 1 No. 3 October 6,1977
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY, FAIRFIELD, CONN. 06430 MIRROR
Core Altering Pr<• § • sed,
Faculty Meeting Erupts
COMPARATIVE CHART: PROPOSED CURRICULUM
PROPOSED
Freshman Core
VS. PRESENT CORE
+ Distribution . Total
Requirements
Present
Core
Change
1 Math.
1 Natural Science
1 Ma.
1 N. S.
2 Ma.
2 N. S.
2 Ma.
2 N. S.
1 History
1 Social
Science
1 Hist.
1 S. s.
2 Hist.
2 S. S.
2 Hist. II. none
2 S. S.
1 Philosophy
1 Rel. Studies
1 Phil. 2 Phil 3 Phil.
1 R. S. 2 R. S. 2 R. S.
1 option 1 option
1 Phil.
1 OptiO!
1 Composition
1 Literature
1 Fine Arts
1. Comp. 1 Comp
1. Lit. 2. Lit. 2 Lit.
1- F. A. 2. F. A. 2 F. A.
1 Language
10 semesters
1 Lang. 2 Lang 2 Lang. V. none
To" "~20 ~20~
by Gerry Gunning
A complete reorganization of
the core curriculum was proposed
Tuesday, at the General Faculty
meeting. Dr. Vincent Rosivach,
chairman of the Curriculum Com-mittee
stressed the point that the
proposal reorganized the core,
but actually made very few re-visions.
The proposal requires stu-dents
to take core courses exclu-sively
their freshman year and not
select a major until they become a
sophomore. Dr. Rosivach stated,
"We are here to teach students
how to think, life is not very sim-ple
and there are many different
ways to look at things."
The proponents of the proposal
cited the fact that seniors in High.
School were unqualified to
choose a major and the broad
spectrum of courses that freshmen
would be required to take under
Key Witness Keliis Mute,
Ethics Panel Probe Miffed
by Ralph Tremaglio
Expecting to hear the subpoe-naed
testimony of Dr. James G.
Keliis, the Ethics Panel of the
Town of Fairfield met on Thurs-day,
September 29, at the Town
Hall. Dr. Keliis, chief source of al-legations
of corruption among
town officials, appeared but
failed to testify, claiming that he
had been contacted by law en-forcement
agencies that, accord-ing
to Keliis, supercede the au-thority
of the panel.
The refusal by Dr. Keliis stun-ned
the Ethics Panel members
whose spokesman and chairman is
University President Rev. Thomas
R. Fitzgerald. Not only in agree-ment
that Dr. Keliis is in defiance
of a subpoena, the members of
the Ethics Panel are amazed that
he now refuses to talk to the panel
when he claims to have proposed
its creation.
According to Fr. Fitzgerald, the
obvious question is: "What hap-pens
now to Dr. Keliis?" Since the
Ethics Panel and the Board of Se-lectmen
agreed that he is in defi-ance
of the subpoena, Fr. Fitz-gerald
stated that the panel has
"recommended that the Board of
Selectmen pursue the matter rath-er
than we." He cited two reasons
for the recommendation saying,
"First, the Board issued the sub-poena.
Second, we are a tempor-ary
group on a limited budget, not
in a position to get into an extend-ed
legal struggle."
The president outlined his own
feelings concerning the future of
the Ethics Panel and Dr. Keliis,
saying: "He has indicated that he
is not going to cooperate. We
might as well try to complete our
work and then go out of business.
What this does to his (Keliis) cred-ibility
is his concern." Fr. Fitz-gerald
added, "If Dr. Keliis had
given us a lot of information, then
we'd have a lot of work ahead of
us."
Angered by the failure of prior
notification of Dr. Keliis' refusal
NILS LOFGREN SIGNED AS OPENER
Fairfield University Student Entertainment Commission has
announced the opening act for the annual fall weekend con-cert.
Rock Guitarist Nils Lofgren and his band will perform,
warming-up for Pure Prairie League which headlines the show
to be held in the gym, Friday, Oct. 14.
S.E.C. Chairman Pete "Chick" Muller voiced his group's en-thusiasm
over the signing of Lofgren, stating, "The FUSA Stu-dent
Entertainment Survey last spring showed Lofgren's popu-larity
on this campus. His name polled on about twenty per-cent
of the questionnaires returned."
(The band for the annual dance has not yet been an-nounced.)
to testify, the members of the Eth-ics
Panel asked him why the other
law enforcement agencies, if any,
did not contact them directly. The
other agencies, referred to at one
point in the meeting as "federal",
should not have "sent Dr. Keliis as
messenger," said Dr. Fitzgerald.
Dr. James G. Keliis is an execu-tive
at United Technologies and
has been a part-time faculty mem-ber
in the University's Graduate
School of Education. During the
past summer, Dr. Keliis, former
Democratic Town Committee
Chairman, made allegations of
corrupt zoning practices. Keliis
charged, in strong, detailed state-ments,
the Fairfield Board of Se-lectmen
with giving and receiving
special favors from the Planning
and Zoning Commission that the
Board appointed.
Calling for the formation of an
investigative group to probe pos-sible
illegal practices, the public
statements of Dr. Keliis resulted in
the selectmen appointing a spe-cial
committee of five prominent,
non-political figures, one of whom
was Fr. Fitzgerald. Fr. Fitzgerald
was elected chairman by the
panel in August.
The president commented on
the role of the Ethics Panel in its
present situation saying, "If peo-ple
will not come forward, give us
charges, and first-hand informa-tion,
then there's not much more
for us to do." He remarked that
these matters "may be things for
law enforcement agencies (to han-dle).
We are not a law enforce-ment
agency. I think we have to
make modest goals."
the proposal would make them
knowledgeable enough to make
this decision by the end of their
first year. Dr. Rosivach remarked,
"Broad spread of liberal arts is
particularly desirable as students
become more provincial...it will
put some life into their freshman
year."
Dr. Evangelos Hajimichael, Pro-fessor
of Physics, led the attack on
the proposal and Professor Rosi-vach.
He asserted that, "Dr. Rosi-vach
suggests that students would
be better introduced to discipline
through core, but are there any
studies on this, or is this just his
imagination?" He also expressed
concern that splitting up courses
and postponing the indepth study
of some of the more rigorous ma-jors
would be a serious mistake.
Other professors in the Science
and Math fields also stated their
fears concerning the reorganiza-tion
of the core. Dr. Frederick Lis-man,
Chairman of the Chemistry
Department declared that, "The
basic problem that the majority of
students who come here are not
able or qualified to choose a
major, is a fallacy. Students who
come here do choose a major!
Making freshmen take these ten
basic requirements will shut our
doors on students. There is noth-ing
imaginative in making fresh-men
take ten core requirements."
Professors from the History,
Philosophy, and Language Depart-ments
joined in on the attack of
the proposal. Rev. James Murphy
upset that Western Civ. was elimi-nated
as a core requirement
called for more hard facts. Mr. Sa-biel,
professor of Modern
Languages at Fairfield, remarked
that "It is impossible to split up
language courses. Freshmen ex-pressed
fears it will be too confus-ing,
if we don't convince the stu-dents
we're in trouble." Dr. Morris
Grossman, professor of philoso-phy,
could not see the connection
drawn between philosophy and re-ligion.
"There is no basis to link
philosophy and religion. A choice
between religion and history
would make as much sense."
Dr. Rosivach defended the pro-posal
by saying, "It was never in-tended
to shaft the science peo-ple,
if this proposal isn't adequate
don't shoot down the whole thing,
make amendments and reform it."
He added that exceptions could
be made for majors that are re-quired
to start Freshman year.
Despite the importance of this
meeting not even half the mem-bers
of the faculty bothered to
show up. Conspicuously absent
were all the members of the Busi-ness
Department. The meeting
was recessed until Oct. 18th when
the final vote on the proposal wiH
be taken. Dr. Rosivach expressed
optimism that the proposal would
be passed if it could be amended
so the rough spots were smoothed
out.