The Los Angeles Loyolan, Volume 78, Issue 16 - January 26, 2000

I Campus News 1m Features p|HP Spring Rush Week experi¬ I|tS ■ jlliSl Mega media mergers ences record numbers. i i&M. raise questions about 14 * f Page 4 | - it* . monopolies. Page 12 Sports Women’s Basketball rolls to third straight WCC vic¬ tory. Page 20 RSHM Celebrates End of 1 50th Year MATT JILLSON / LOYOLAN Sr. Frances Gusenhoven, RSHM, addresses the congregation during Tuesday's anniversary mass. by Leigh Woosley Asst. News Editor To a casual observer, Sister Frances Gussenhoven, RSHM may seem like any other English professor at LMU. She often retires to a book- lined office on the third floor of Foley, marches into St. Robert’s Hall on Tuesday and Thursday morning to teach Arthurian Romance, and may be seen strid¬ ing across Alumni Mall at any given time of day. Yet beyond the realm of LMU, Gussenhoven leads a life unlike that of the average professor. As a sister in the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM) congregation, she has devoted her life to God and the vows of “poverty, chastity, and obedience,” By walking this path of life, Gusssenhoven maintains a relationship with God that is “very mystical, very personal, and very individual” while upholding “a unified, love-filled community coming to God.” Gussenhoven joined others to celebrate the RSHM community’s 150th anniversary and the clos¬ ing of a jubilee year on Tuesday, Jan. 25 in Sacred Heart Chapel. As major players in both the founding of Marymount College and, later, the merging of the col¬ lege with Loyola University in 1973, the sisters of RSHM are an integral part of the community today. The story begins during the mid- 1800’s in the small southern town of Beziers, France, when Father John Gailhac was inspired to help his community after see¬ ing scores of indigent and aban¬ doned people enter the struggling City Hospital where he was a chaplain. The majority of this populace was composed of women and children, including the home¬ less and prostitutes. Gailhac envisioned a community of reli¬ gious women who would work to relieve the suffering of these peo¬ ple. “Fr. Gailhac was always con¬ cerned about women and their dignity,” said Sister Peg Dolan, RSHM alumni chaplain and alumni campus minister. “From the very beginning, he always encouraged women to develop their own gifts ” Gailhac called on the gifts of Apollonie Pelissier-Cure, who was the widow of Eugene Cure, Gailhac’s boyhood friend, and the two collaborated to form the RSHM on February 24, 1849. Gailhac and Pelissier-Cure, later known as Mother Saint Jean, encouraged the sisters to use their God-given gifts to the fullest extent in order to help their com¬ munity. Dolan said that Gailhac’s “faith and trust in the talents of women” was “a unique and radi¬ cal idea at the time ” He crated a successful community of serving women and based their work on the fundamental belief “that all may have life,” a statement that is engraved on the cross worn by each sister. Today Hj these crosses are donned for all to see, yet there was a time when a woman’s role in religion was limited. “Women were treated for many centuries more or less like objects to be bought and sold and to give birth Milestone: page з Hot-Water Pipe-Burst Soaks Hilton Basement by Michael Ambrozewicz News Editor When Renee Bonner returned to work at Information Services on Monday, Jan. 22, she found that her office and the rest of the Hilton basement were “a hot, sticky, wet mess.” On the morning of Sunday, Jan. 22, a hot water pipe supplying the Hilton Center for Business and Rains and McCarthy Halls unex- ANDREA JABLONSKI / LOYOLAN Water damage in the basement of Hilton Center for Business was extensive Sunday. Equipment is being assessed for damages. pectedly broke, spilling an estimated 10,000 gallons of hot water into the basement of Hilton. The water pipe, located in the mechanical room in the basement, was part of the original construction six years ago and failed at a seam which glued two sections of the pipe together. According the David Littell, director of opera¬ tions and maintenance, the 180-degree water caused the mechanical room to fill with steam which set off the fire sprinkler system. This sent out an alarm to the department of public safety and to the fire department. Melissa Hansen, a sophomore English major, said that she “heard the alarm [in h^r room in McCarthy] and thought it was a fire.” Fire officials arrived on the scene at 10:44 a.m., according to the department of public safety’s time log of the incident. Littell said that the firefighters needed to use their oxygen masks and tanks because the scalding-hot water produced so much steam that visibility was reduced. Shortly thereafter, crews from operations and maintenance arrived and shut off the valves, stop¬ ping the water flow and returning water service to the affected areas. “I thought it was a routine proce¬ dure,” said sophomore graphic design major Dave Fallon. When he saw the clean-up trucks, he wasn’t worried, even though a public safety official told him that it was a “cam¬ pus emergency.” The situation was contained by Sunday night, when operations and maintenance had Flood: page 2 ■ Anniversary: LMUs other founding religious order marks passage of jubilee year. Seton Hall Sounds Alarm on Fire Safety ■ TRAGEDY: Dorm blaze in New Jersey raises concerns about false drills on campus. by Kasey Seymour Editor in Chief The dormitory fire at Seton Hall university which took the lives of three students and injured over 60 others last week, has LMU residents and members of the student housing staff eval¬ uating the possibility that such a tragedy could here. Early last Wednesday morn¬ ing, Jan. 19, during finals week at Seton Hall, a fire started on the third floor of Boland Hall on Seton Hall’s South Orange, New Jersey campus. Eighteen false alarms had been pulled since September, according to authori¬ ties. Thinking that the fire alarm was a false alarm, as there had been seven false alarms during finals week, some students, were slow to leave the building. As a result, the ensuing injuries were much worse than if students had left the building quickly. Rich Rocheleau, EMU’s direc¬ tor of student housing, comment¬ ed on the situation earlier this week. “I was shocked and sad¬ dened to hear what had hap¬ pened,” he said. “I think that is eveiy director of housing’s worst nightmare — for something like that to happen on their campus.” In years past, LMU has had its share of false fire alarms. The two buildings, according to Rocheleau that have had the most problems historically have been McKay and Rains. “[However], in both buildings, the number of false alarms is down. Although, more than one is one too many.” According to Jim Espinoza, area coordinator for the Leavey campus there were seven false fire alarms in Rains during the Dorms: page з ■INDEX News ill 'Campus News 4 Perspective 6 Arts & Entertainment 10 Features 12 Classified 15 www.lmu.edu/ staff/loyolan