2007 Vol.76, No.20 Xavierite

              The Xavierite
THE EYES AND EARS OF SAINT XAVIER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
www.xavierite.com
Volume 76, Number 20
New library designs are unveiled
Editorials
Is this supposed to
be green?
Page 4
Features
Sudoku
DUMMIES
Hate words?
Love numbers?
Page 6
Entertainment
For some reason,
Megan came into the
office and just kept
yelling "SPARTA!"
Page 8
Sports
Cougar Basketball
celebrates great season.
Page 16
By Nicholas Kerr
News Editor
The construction of a new library
on the Chicago Campus of Saint Xavier
University entered stage two this past week
as the university exhibited four potential
designs for the future library from Mar.15-20
in the student lounge.
According to a University press release
there are no "immediate" plans to build a
new library which would be located south of
the Warde Academic Center where parking
Lot 3 is located.
The University also indicated that the
new library would be built using similar
green technologies as those in Rubloff
Hall.
Junior Matt Reid said of the designs,
"The public exhibition is appreciated
because it gives students a chance to see the
future outlook of SXU. The presentations
are really clean, crisp and professional."
The architecture firms that will
submit proposals are Frye Gillan Molinaro
Architects; Nagle Hartray Danker Kagan
McKay Penney Architects; Perkins+Will; and
Solomon Cordwell Buenz.
Students look at a potential design
According to the press release, the
firms were at SXU on Feb.21 to research the
campus and will be presenting their proposal
to the Selection Committee on Mar. 26.
The Selection Committee is comprised
of seven members. Among the committee
members are SXU Provost Dominick Hart
and Chicago Public Library commissioner
Mary Dempsey. The commitee will make a
suggestion of which plan to go with to Dr.
Dwyer.
The Xavierite will have more coverage
of the plans for a new library in our next
issue.
Cardinal talks higher ed.
By Nicholas Kerr
News Editor
At his Mar. 8 lecture Cardinal George
highlighted a problem as he saw it of the
lack of Catholic professors at Catholic
universities.
He cited Notre Dame as an example,
pointing out that in the 1960s their
percentage of Catholic faculty with more
than ninety percent whereas today it is only
a slim majority Catholic.
He concluded his remarks on the
subject by stating, "It is difficult to imagine
any university college to be in any significant
sense Catholic if its faculty is dominated by
people who might be hostile to the vision
at the heart of the Catholic moral and
intellectual traditions."
The Cardinal gave the fourth installment
of the Catholic Colloquium Lecture Series.
His lecture focused on the role of Catholic
universities in today's world. Areas he touched
upon in the speech included the increasing
secularization in higher education and in
the teaching of applied ethics. He ended the
lecture with his
thoughts of the
Second Vatican
Council.
The bulk of the
Cardinal lecture
dealt with the
secularization in
applied ethics.
According to
the Cardinal
applied ethics,
the study
of ethics of
practical
problems in
certain subject
area, became
popular in the
1970's with the
writings of Peter Singer and John Rawls.
A problem he saw with the application
of applied ethics is that people now view
problems on a case by case process rather
than overall moral view of things.
The area of applied ethics he touched on
Cardinal George
most with medical ethics.
One area of medical ethics that bothered
him was the acceptance of physician-assisted
suicide. He noted that the best effort to stop
the legalization of this practice came from
the disabled community.
He also criticized patient autonomy
by saying, "This resolve to personal choice
put forward as a neutral and liberating
value has been responsible for some of the
greatest atrocities committed in modern
medicine. The frequency which it is
appealed as the value of last resort, and so
much of secular academic ethics is testimony
to the bankruptcy of this approach to
contemporary moral issues."
The Cardinal also said, "The
importance therefore of presevering catholic
healthcare institutions particularly hospitals
{is greater} because they are the only medical
institutions in this culture where no one is
deliberately put to death."
He also challenged the popular view
that the Second Vatican Council was an
attempt of the Church at that time to try to
modernize. He thought of it as an attempt
by the Church to help unite the world at a
time of social upheavel.
John Pelrine, Vice President for Student
Affairs, said of the speech, "I really enjoyed
it. He showed he understood the complexity
of higher education. The experience he has as
a phiolosophy professor at Creighton gave
him a good insight into Catholic higher
education."