THE MIRROR Student-run newspaper
www.fairfieldmirror.com
Vol. 38, Iss. 20
Week of March 27, 2013
MirrorFairfield The Fairfield Mirror
Students never make it halfway there By Dylan Dembin Vine Editor You can’t catch the boat if you can’t catch the bus. Unfortunately, this was the case last Saturday, March 23, as members of the sophomore class dressed in semi-formal attire and waited for the bus to drive them to their Halfway There Cruise that never came. Each year, sophomores are given the chance to embark on an evening of fun and celebration at the cost of $50 per ticket, which covers dinner and transportation. However, this year the cruise did not happen due to an issue with bus scheduling.
The buses were supposed to take Fairfield students to New York City, where they would take a ride around Manhattan on a cruise ship. Kuo explained there was a miscommunication in the confirmation of the reservation between the office of conference & event management and FUSA. “Both of them thought that the reservation was made but it was never confirmed by Academy Bus Company,” Kuo said. Students who waited for the bus in Alumni Hall were upset about the cancellation of plans. Some even began to chant, “Move that bus!” However, Fred J. Kuo, director of the office of student
involvement, tried to keep things from getting out of hand by calming the crowd and sympathizing with students. He informed them about what was going on as he became aware of it. “Myself and the students had a reservation for the bus on Saturday. It was supposed to arrive at 4:30, so right around 4:30 when the bus didn’t show up was when we got a little concerned,” said Kuo. He said he then checked with the bus company and they said they did not have any reservation to arrive at Fairfield. “I’m still in meetings right now to figure out where the error was,” Kuo said. “Was it on our end, meaning [the] insti-
tution, or was it on Academy’s end? I’m not sure what the answer is just yet.” He hopes FUSA will put a statement out to the sophomore class in terms of a follow-up with hopes to reschedule. Currently, the class of 2015 Programmers, Thomas Kenney and Andrea Butler are looking at the event calendar and working with the cruise company in an attempt to reschedule the event. Unfortunately, it is predicted that the University will suffer some sort of financial loss. Kuo revealed on Tuesday the incident will cost the school a total of $2,000. “We lucked out that the cruise company hadn’t prepped most of
the food as we notified them when we had the issue,” Kuo said. It is still uncertain if the cruise company will offset any of these charges. Although a decision to reschedule will not be made any sooner than after Easter break, Kuo stresses that students save their tickets because they will either be able to redeem them for the rescheduled cruise or refund them, if they cannot attend the rescheduled date. FUSA will also allow students who purchased cruise tickets to redeem them for free tickets to Dogwoods Dance on April 13.
BUS | PAGE 2
Social media leads to event cancellation By Luigi DiMeglio Managing Editor
Contributed photo
FUSA plans to return Dogwoods to its original glory. This year’s spring dance will not conflict with Clam Jam.
FUSA to redeem Dogwoods tradition By Salvatore Trifilio News Editor The Fairfield University Student Association is looking to revive a decades-old Fairfield tradition by making this year’s Dogwoods Dance one for the books. In years past the event suffered low attendance levels due to a scheduling conflict with Clam Jam, according to FUSA President Rob Vogel ’13. This year, Vogel made sure that the date was moved from April 27 to April 13, a week before Around the World and the senior mock wedding. “For the past two years it’s been on the night of Clam Jam,” Vogel said. “We worked hard this year to move it to a
different night and to get the administration to approve us moving to a different night.” In recent years Fairfield scheduled the event on the night of Clam Jam as a way to deter students from attending the non-sanctioned, off-campus beach party, according to Vogel. However, he said that moving the event this year was relatively easy. “We were putting [in] way too much effort financially and other resources into an event that we knew students weren’t getting what we want out of it,” said Vogel. FUSA believed that it was a waste of resources to schedule an event when students would chose Clam Jam instead; moving the date was a logical decision. FUSA utilized social me-
dia to tease this year’s dance by posting a video for “Dogwoods ’13 Fire and Ice” on the Facebook group of each class, with a tailored message to each grade. They wanted to market the event to seniors as another Fairfield staple before commencement, to juniors and sophomores as a “President’s Ball part 2” and to freshmen as a part of Fairfield tradition that they had never heard of before. Freshman Katie Sirna, who saw the post in her class’ Facebook group, said the teaser sold her on Dogwoods ’13. “I didn’t hear about it at all, then I watched the video and thought it was cool,” said
DANCE | PAGE 4
Athlete suspensions and the preemptive disbanding of a large outdoor party stained last weekend after would-be hosts pitched the event on Facebook to be a drunken orgy. The office of residence life approved what was originally slated to be an afternoon of outdoor dancing in the lawn between Student Townhouse Complex blocks 8, 9 and 10. However, a “degrading” Facebook event page appeared within 24 hours of the approval according to Dean of Students Karen Donohue ‘03. Students administrating the event proposed it to ResLife with the name “Fairfield Ultra” – a spinoff of the annual international event (Ultra Music Festival) known for crowds of young people and hours of electronic disc jockeying. The Facebook event page, titled “FUltra Townhouse F*ckfest,” had a detailed description stating,
“… DJ Lou [will] be setting up his strip poles and boombox on the grass for us to get inebriated and bang everything that has two legs and a heartbeat,” among other things. For Donoghue, “whether it was a joke or not, it was extremely disappointing … This turned from an organized event to an undercover orgy, you could argue.” Three students were administrators of the Facebook event page and were asked by the dean of students’ office to delete it and cancel the event. The students complied. The dean’s office would not discuss any other sanctions that may have been imposed on the students for the offensive event description. Donoghue said that all action taken in her office is done independently from the athletic department, though the two departments keep in communication. On athletics, “They have their own standards … I uphold to the [Student Handbook] and I treat all the same.” The dean’s office was informed
PARTY | PAGE 4
Like our print redesign? Check out our online redesign, too. Let us know your thoughts.