Members discuss academics in dorms
By FINN PRESSLY
Assistant News Editor
Responding to a question posed by the ad hoc subcommittee on student life, the Campus Life Council debated the role of academics in the residence halls.
"I don't think academics often gets the attention it deserves in the dorms," said off-campus senator Pat Foy. "I would like to create a more intellectual atmosphere in [the] residence halls."
Keough Hall senator Brian O'Donoghue referred to the Hall Fellows program, which once brought faculty members to the residence halls as residents.
Other members disagreed, expressing a reluctance to mix the classroom and the dormitory.
"I think a lot of students would want to separate residence and academic life," said Brian Rigney. He suggested instead that professors try holding office hours in LaFortune or host class dinners, both of which have been successfully implemented at Notre Dame.
Fr. David Scheidler, rector of St. Edward's Hall, echoed similar sentiments.
"The residence halls are our students' homes ... I hope we don't get away from that," he said, comparing a student returning from class to a worker returning home. "They need a place to get away from all that."
In other CLC news
u Faculty representative Edward Manier decried the manner in which the office of student affairs addressed the ban on the Women's Resource Center.
"They handled that issue as if it were an issue before a parish priest in a parish high school —not a university," he said. "The Office of Student Affairs in matters having to do with student organizations assumes itself the power of determining what does and does not contravene the teachings of the Catholic Church."
"That sort of presumption has to be challenged," he added.
Dean Ava Preacher seconded Manier's concerns.
"I think reserving the right to student affairs to determine what contravenes the moral teaching of the Catholic Church [is] an awfully large burden," she said.
Bill Kirk, assistant vice-president for residence life, stressed that while student organizations are prohibited from "encourage or participate in any activity that contravenes the moral teachings of the Catholic Church," that does not affect individual liberties.
"[This] no way impinges upon ... the student's ability to speak as an individual," he said.
u The council prepared questions for vice president of student affairs Fr. Mark Poorman who will visit the November 22 meeting to deliver a "state of student affairs" address.
Student body president Micah Murphy explained the reasons for the upcoming meeting.
"It's to see what in fact they're doing [and] to see if there's something they want us to explore," he said.
All News Stories for Tuesday, November 9, 1999
