Mirror - Vol. 13, No. 05 - October 13, 1988

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 13, No. 5 Our Second Decade Thursday, October 13, 1988 The Image of Fairfield
Superior General Kolvenbach Speaks
Lynn Ann Casey
News Editor
The Very Rev. Peter-Hans
Kolvenbach, S.J., Superior Gen-eral
of the Society of Jesus since
1983, spoke on the evening of
October 6 in the Campus Center to
an invited audience that included
students and faculty.
Mr. Frank J. Carroll, III,
President of the Fairfield Univer-sity
Student Association, Profes-sor
Carmen Donnarumma, Senior
Faculty Member, William J. Kra-mer,
Esq., Chairman ofFairfield's
Board of Trustees all welcomed
Father General Kolvenbach.
Professor Donnarumma
greeted the superior general with
remarks in Italian, one of Father
Kolvenbach's many languages. He
praised St. Ignatius of Loyola and
his establishment of the order of
the Society of Jesus, saying that it
is an order that believes in "faith in
God, the creator, and in ajust soci-ety."
These beliefs, he says are
"unrestrictive, for all people of all
time."
St. Ignatius had an "ecu-menical
vision," according to Pro-fessor
Donnarumma, and this vi-sion
is exemplified in the estab-lishment
of the many schools
founded by the Jesuits, including
Fairfield University. The Jesuits,
as he has seen since he has been
teaching at Fairfield since 1942,
"are not only thinkers, but doers."
William Kramer, recently
elected as Chairman of the Board
of Trustees, graduated from Fa-ifield,
and has had a child who has
also. He feels that the Jesuit pres-ence
has made a difference in his
life. Mr. Kramer welcomed Father
General in light of the recently
initiated $35 million capital cam-paign,
highlighting the Jesuit and
Catholic aspect ofFaifield Univer-sity.
"When Faifield University
says they are Fulfilling the Jesuit
Ideal" commented Mr. Kramer,
"they are not making and idle
boast."
Father Aloysius P. Kelley,
S.J., introduced Father General
Fr. Kelley, Fr. General Kolvenbach, Dr, Donnarumma Photo by Rich Nunziante
Kolvenbach, the 29th Superior
General of the Jesuit Order. He
cited Father General's "com-mittment
to the Jesuit tradition and
his service to faith andjustice." He
said that Thursday was "an his-toric
evening" for Faifield and the
Fairfield was honored to have the
Superior General speak here.
The Very Rev. Peter-Hans
Kolvenbach began by saying that
it has been 20 years since his ex-tended
visit to Faifield University,
and that he is "overwhelmed at the
incredible growth that has oc-curred."
He called Fairfield and
"academic institution of excel-lence"
and a "school of high ide-als."
As Fairfield nears its 50th
Anniversary, the Father General
encourages eveyone to "continue
growing" by letting the Jesuit
mission guide this growth.
Father General Kolvenbach
said to the students ofFairfield that
"you could become anything." He
said, though, that "our students are
insulated" in the 9th richest county
in the country, while we are right
next to the 7th poorest city in the
country, Bridgeport. He called for
students to "pursue peace and jus-tice
in the world," and felt that they
could start with Bridgeport.
The ultimate aim of a Jesuit
education is the "full growth of a
person which leads to action which
is filled with the presence of Je-sus."
He urged students to practice
"self-discipline." He asked the
audience "What must you do to
enhance the growth of this univer-sity
with faith, peace, and justice
as integral components of Jesuit
education?"
We are to ensure the re-sponsibility
for the personal growth
of each individual and we should
act as part of a caring community,
respectful of the rights of others.
We should be "men and women
committed to the ideal ofthe Jesuit
vision."
Father General praised the
faith, peace, and justice minor
recently added to the curriculum,
but said that it "cannot just be a
minor", for it must be "the soul of
the academic enterprise at this
beautiful university." He encour-aged
students to "raise your own
consciousness as well as that of
others" to the deprivation and suf-fering
of fellow human beings. As
individuals, we have a "moral re-sponsibility
for all members" of
the human race.
Also eitedby Father Gen-eral
was the strong leadership of
Fairfield University. "I pray that
all of you will recommitt your-selves."
"May the Lord continue
to work through each of you." He
concluded by asking each of us to
work to achieve "faith through the
fullness of truth." We can do this
through our committment to the
Jesuit ideal.
Father General Kolven-bach's
ties to Fairfield University
date back to 1967-68 during his
tertianship at Pomphret, Connecti-cut
when he visited the college
campus and volunteered to teach a
French class and to catalogue
books. He is fluent in Dutch,
English, German, Russian, Italian,
Spanish, and Armenian.
Fairfield University's "Revolution" Recalled
William M. Abbott
Department ofHistory
Last Wednesday night, an
audience of over eighty students,
faculty, and administration heard
Kevin McAuliffe, Fairfield Class
of 1971 and former managing edi-tor
of the campus newspaper, give
history of Fairfield's "revolution"
of 1968-71.
Mr. McAuliffe's talk was
followed by comments from two
.other persons involved in the
struggles of those years: Mr. Wil-liam
P. Schimpf, Vice President of
Student Services, and Mr. Dennis
Gallagher, FUSA president in
1971-72. The talk was the first in
a six part series on "The Meaning
of Revolution" that will be pre-sented
in 1988-89, the bicenten-nial
of the French Revolution.
The theme for the evening was
the question:"was there really a
revolution at Fairfield?" Tojudge
from the accounts presented by the
three speakers there was indeed a
revolution here, not because the
changes were all that radical by the
standards of American universi-ties
at that time, but because Fair-field
was so far behind the rest of
the country.
During Mr. McAuliffe's talk
there were frequent bursts of dis-believing
laughter from the audi-ence
as he recounted the restric-tions
under which the all-male
student body had lived during the
years prior to 1968. "Parietal re-strictions"
dictated that students in
the dorms could only have female
visitors every fourth Sunday, from
2-4 inthe afternoon, and withdoors
open throughout that time.
Coat and tie were mandatory
at all meals, alcohol was forbid-den,
grades were mailed to parents
before the students ever saw them,
and prior to 1966, students were
required to attend mass twice a
week. The University even en-forced
such attendance by issuing
punchcards at mass; the cards had
to be produced at the end of the
week as evidence of attendance.
Fairfield, according to Mr.
McAuliffe, was outside of the
American University mainstream
and was conservative even by Jes-uit
standards: a sort of "Jesuit
Rhodesia," with the students in the
role of the Rhodesian blacks.
Towards the end ofthe 1960's,
however, shifts in the composition
of both the student body and the
faculty created the conditions for
basic change. More students were
comingto Fairfieldwhocould have
gone to more liberal colleges, and
a shortage of priests dictated that
an increasingly large number of
laymen be hired as faculty mem-bers.
The result in 1968-69 was an
organized student opposition, an
opposition supported by many
sympathetic faculty members, to
the University's cherished notion
that it should act in loco parentis
Demands for an end to parie-tal
restrictions, to dress codes, and
to the "dry campus" policy were
apparently granted by administra-tion
in the spring of 1969, only to
be retracted shortly afterwards, as
President Mclnnes overrode Dean
Robert Griffin. The resultant mis-trust
between President Mclnnes
and the student government cre-ated
demands for student partici-pation
in the actual administration
of the University, and in 1969-70,
this issue came to a head with
student strikes, the occupation of
campus buildings, and demands
for the dismissal ofPresident Mcln-nes.
By this point, national and
international politics had begun to
influence the Fairfield revolution,
as the Vietnam War, the military
draft, and the killing of students at
Kent State University inflamed
emotions and polarized opinion.
The "revolution" ended, as
most revolutions do, having
achieved part but not all of its
goals, and having created the at-mosphere
for student change. The
idea of student participation in the
running of the university fizzled
out in 1972, and Father Mclnnes
remained president of the Univer-sity
until 1973. It was clear, how-ever,
that there would be no return
to the social restrictions ofthe mid-
1960's.
Theuniversity, now coed, was
moving in a more secular direc-tion,
and the faculty was gaining
increasing control over the aca-demic
life of the campus. What
Mr. McAuliffe termed the "de-
Stalinization" of Fairfield was fre-quently
achieved by means more
indirect and gradual than those of
"revolution," but it was achieved
nonetheless.
In their comments, Dennis
Gallagher and Vice President
Schimpf substantially agreed with
Mr. McAuliffe's account, although
Mr. Schimpf questioned whether
the notion of in loco parentis is
dead at Fairfield. The students of
1969-71, according to Mr.
Schimpf, were willing, if arrested
off-campus, to forego any univer-sity
assistance in bailing them out;
they recognized that social inde-pendence
was a two-way street:
In view ofthe current students
complaints to university officials
about police harassment down at
the beach houses, there is still being
clung to, not by the administration,
but by some of today's students
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