Mirror - Vol. 25, No. 04 - October 21, 1999

              The Mirror
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
Volume 25, Number 4 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, October 21, 1999
A war of its own
The '60s Project has come underfire for its selection ofsix speakers
By Drew Luthern
STAFF WRITER
The Sixties Project came under fire
early this week via an email to mem-bers
of the Fairfield University com-munity
from a national Catholic orga-nization.
Stating that a request from Fairfield
alumni prompted the email, The Car-dinal
Newman Society, an organization
assisting in efforts to strengthen the
Catholic identities of Catholic colleges
and universities, addressed concerns
over six speakers taking part in the
For original e-mail message and
student reactions, See Commentary
Section
university's Sixties Project, and their
alleged public opposition to the Catho-lic
Church.
In a email received by The Mirror,
Patrick Reilly, the Executive Director
of the Cardinal Newman Society said
the original message was to inform the
Fairfield University community of "a
scandal in your midst", referring to the
Sixties Project.
Reilly went on to say that the soci-ety
has faxed a private letter to Fairfield
University's President, Father Aloysius
Kelley, with the hope that he "will act
quickly to address the scandal caused
by the '60s Project by rescinding the
invitations made to Gloria Steinem and
Eugene McCarthy". Steinem and
McCarthy are two speakers scheduled
to lecture in accordance with the '60s
Project.
"It is our sincere wish that the
Fairfield community will use this op-portunity
to explore the important is-sues
raised by the '60s Project and to
find your own ways to preserve
„-•- Fairfield's
/ ^gy^2* H|^ greatest
asset, its
Catholic
identity,"
said
Reilly.
"Without
that iden-t
i t y
Fairfield
is a lesser
institu-tion."
In re-sponse
to Reilly's email, Sixties Project
coordinator Dr. David McFadden was
satisfied that the Cardinal Newman
Society had finally identified them-selves
and their position. However,
McFadden stood by the Sixties Project
and Fairfield University.
"We have no apologies or regrets,"
said McFadden. "We are upholding
the best of the Jesuit institution and
our commitment to higher education."
The original message pointed to
speakers Christopher Hitchens, Mary
Travers, Janis Ian, Morris Dees,
Gloria Steinem, and Eugene
Gloria Steinem
Photo: Internet
Mary Travers (middle) of Peter, Paul & Mary spoke at the Quick
Center on Sept. 29
McCarthy as having various view-points
in conflict with Catholic teach-ing.
"I find this to be character assassi-nation,"
said Sixties Project
coordinator Dr. Marti LoMonaco. "I
don't believe that anyone should be
judged
for private decisions they make. That
is our fundamental right as human be-ings."
LoMonaco went on to call the
email "outrageous", saying that it un-fairly
attacked free speech and the
mission of Fairfield University to edu-cate
without being limited by the
views of the church.
Upon learning that the message
was only informative of the Cardinal
Newman Society's stance, and not an
imposition of belief, LoMonaco re-affirmed
her conviction of free
speech.
"They have every right to inform
us of this, but
we also have ev-ery
right to in-terpret
the mes-sage
as we
want," said
LoMonaco.
\Acting Aca-demic
Vice-
President Orin
Grossman also
pointed to Fairfield
University's commitment to educat-ing
students with various points of
view.
"Ever since I've been here, we've
consistently invited speakers who
discuss all kinds of issues," said
Grossman. "It is never the intention
of our mission to exclude speakers
with messages contrary to the beliefs
of the Catholic Church."
Grossman referred to Morris
Dees, one of the speakers criticized,
saying that Dees is a model of Catho-lic
teaching that has devoted his life
to social justice.
Continued on p. 3 The price for parking
By Brian Huben
NEWS EDITOR
If you think parking on campus is
bad now, get ready because it is about
to get worse.
Beginning this week, the Canisius
Parking Lots will be closed to com-mence
construction which will triple
the number of parking spaces there. In
addition, the construction of two park-ing
lots, one on each side of Bellarmine
Hill Road, has already begun.
"We had originally hoped that the
Canisius lots would not have to be
closed during construction," Rick Tay-lor,
assistant vice president of admin-istration
for campus operations, said.
"However, because the land is not level
there, the grade of the existing lots
must be changed and therefore the lots
have to be closed."
In the mean time, Taylor said that
students will be permitted to park on
the grassy areas by Regis and Jogues
Halls and that no tickets will be issued
by security. The lots are not scheduled
to be finished until December.
The existing Quick Center lot will
eventually become the parking lot for
the upperclassmen village when the
new dorm opens next fall. This vil-lage
will consist of the new dorm as
well as Kostka and Claver Halls. Since
Photo: Brian Huben
Work on two new parking lots has already begun by the Quick Center
the new dorm requires its own parking,
it will take over the existing Quick Cen-ter
lot and the Quick Center's new lot
will be moved to the other side of the
building. This lot will increase its num-ber
of spaces by 28.
Many students, however, are con-cerned
that new lots by the Quick Cen-ter
will mar what many believe to be
the most beautiful part of campus. "I
can't believe they want to build a park-ing
lot down by the pond," Colleen
Capuzzi, '01, said. "That is the nicest
part of campus"
Another student, however, felt that
the new lots were worth sacrificing the
attractive terrain. "There really is a lack
of parking on campus and if they can't
do it anywhere else then there's noth-ing
they can do," John Uliano, '01, said.
Taylor said, however, that these lots
would be heavily planted and that they
will do as much as they can to'maintain
Continued on p. 4
Campus Life
Fight back against harassment
see pg. 5
Commentary
Opinions on '60s project
controversy
see pg. 9
Arts & Enterntainment
Halloween movie preview
see pg. 11
Sports
FU runner make history
see pg. 15