Berchmans and Xavier
The only two Gothic buildings actually built were Berchmans and Xavier. There are a few more remnants, however, left from Fr. Dolan's grand plan. Still visible outside of today's recreation center is a traffic circle which was to have been the center of the campus. It is called "Dolan's Navel" by the Jesuits. Another remnant is the grand stone stairway leading to today's Donnarumma. For decades it led to an open field. When the plan was first announced, Fr. Dolan referred to it as the "Notre Dame of the East. The Jesuits had great expectations and disarming confidence in their emerging university. Although much of this grand plan never materialized, few institutions can claim such rapid growth under the direction of the later energetic presidents.
An outdoor band shell was built in 1948 near the baseball field. Although not part
of the master plan, it was an imaginative structure. For the next 33 years this shell
would host concerts involving the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, Barnum Musical
Festival, Pops concerts and jazz festivals.
Francis Xavier was an excellent model for our students because he was a communicator
without parallel. So thorough was his work that three centuries after his death missionaries
found remnants of his early Christian community, without the benefit of priests, still intact and staunch in the Faith he had inspired in them. Xavier expressed
himself very clearly and once he scolded (by letter) his benefactor King John of
Portugal that "he would not enjoy heaven if he continued to plunder the wealth of
the colonies."
Let no one doubt the Jesuit reverence for their founder Ignatius Loyola: no less than
four Fairfield buildings have carried his name! Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish Basque
soldier who underwent an extraordinary conversion while recuperating from a leg broken by a cannon ball in battle. He wrote down his experiences of God which he called
his Spiritual Exercises and later he founded the Society of Jesus with the approval of Pope Paul III in 1540. The genius and innovation Ignatius brought to education came from his Spiritual
Exercises whose object is to free a person from predispositions and biases, thus
enabling free choices leading to happy, fulfilled lives.
On the back wall of Canisius is found the core requirements descending from the famous
Jesuit Ratio Studiorum of 1599, which edict represented the first time mathematics
was included in a curriculum of a whole system of education. It is said that "as
long as there is mathematics in the curriculum there will be prayer in schools".
Fairfield University's Ur-history
Also more information about Fairfield University is found in the book: A 1971 aerial view of the middle of the campus
2. Berchmans and Xavier
The new school buildings started with John Berchmans
, was built in 1947 and named to honor a brilliant young 17th Century Belgian Jesuit
who thought little of walking 800 miles from Antwerp to Rome to continue his Jesuit
seminary studies. But this was nothing compared to the obstacles faced by the early
Fairfield Jesuits. For half a century the stones of this sturdy building witnessed thousands
of boys become young men and for 3 decades sheltered 14 Jesuits on its top floor.
Today Berchmans is still used as a classroom and office building for our Fairfield
Preparatory school.
The next building whose construction started while Berchmans was still being built
in 1947 was named after Francis Xavier, an indefatigable missionary who was one
of Ignatius' first seven companions and was sent to the orient by Ignatius. He traveled
thousands of miles and baptized countless thousands and died in 1562 off the coast of
China. Today Xavier Hall is part of the Prep school. It also houses the University
Media Center which runs the campus closed circuit television system feeding 44 channels
throughout the campus including all residence halls. St. Ignatius
3. Loyola
The brilliant ideas and brave initiatives did not end with Fr. James Dolan. Loyola
Hall was built to fill the need for a residence hall. In 1955 Loyola was completed
for 211 students. Some of the first women who came to Fairfield in 1970 lived in
Loyola.Loyola in Bridgeport
From Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises, the Principle and Foundation are written in Latin
across the west wall of Loyola Hall . . . "We were created to praise, and serve
God and all other things were created to help us attain that end." These Exercises
were never meant to be simply read but done and exercised.
From the day it opened Loyola's ground floor hosted the university chapel until 1990
when the Egan/Loyola chapel was built. Then Loyola's ground floor was changed into
the present art studios and art rooms. The parishioners of Pius X Parish, a few
miles away, also used the Loyola chapel for two years while their church was being built.
Before the Campus center was built the ground floor also housed the student dining
room south of the chapel area.
It was in Loyola that the New York Giants had their
meals when they summered here in the sixties. The kitchen was at the north end; remnants
are still evident in the peculiar plumbing and structure of the rooms where the food
was prepared and in the loading platform at the end of the delivery truck ramp. Near
this was the outdoor refrigerator, a testimony to the honesty of the student body three
decades ago.
The CORE on the walls of Canisius
4. Canisius and Gonzaga
In 1957 the fourth building was built, a classroom building named after Peter Canisius,
a German Jesuit who was a doctor of the Church and died in 1597.
In 1550 Canisius returned to Germany with only two Jesuits. Thirty years later their
number had grown from 3 to 1110. He became the first Jesuit College president, and
founded many universities. He wrote one of the earliest catechisms, so well known
that a "Catechism" was called a "Canisius". Peter Canisius should be the patron of libraries
because he once said: "Better a college without a chapel than a college without a
library." He was serious about scholarship. The Kyrie Elieson on the wall of gonzaga
From 1957 to 1968, the ground floor of Canisius housed the University Library before
it moved to its present location in 1968. In Canisius graduate studies started in
1950 for both men and women in business administration, education, and financial
management. Besides classrooms, faculty and deans' offices, it housed the office of president
until 1982. A meeting room in continual use is named to honor Fr. James Coughlin
who had served as academic vice president for 17 years. Here, also, Continuing Education started in 1970. Now Canisius boasts of the Culpeper Language Lab, computer labs
and impressive multimedia rooms.
Behind Canisius lies a red piece of modern art by the sculptor Larry Mohr who loaned
us the two intersecting V-shaped I-beams called Vee-one as a symbol of the help Catholics and Catholic religious orders
such as the Jesuits gave to the Jews during World War II. It is meant to be a victory
symbol for people of good will.The life of Aloysius Gonzaga
In 1957, the next building erected was a residence hall for 223 students named Gonzaga
Hall. Aloysius Gonzaga was named the patron of Catholic Youth. He died before ordination
while helping in the Roman plague of 1591. In his family were found all kinds of
scoundrels, thieves and murderers. Feuding members of family called on Aloysius to
settle their fights. Bernard Riley's mural of St. Aloysius' life
Part of Riley's painting
In the Foyer is a large 1959 mural by the local artist Bernard Riley who was proclaimed
Artist of the Year by the Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce. His son John graduated
from the Prep and the University. Along Gonzaga's south wall is found a Gregorian
Chant notation of the "Kyrie" (Lord, have mercy!) in offset brick. This curiosity is noted
in Ripley's "Believe it or not".
Besides being a residence hall Gonzaga has a large auditorium and the offices of the
credit union and the student newspaper. In Gonzaga there are many curious rooms and
passageways - somewhat like an old English mansion. One such was the collection of
rooms for the auditorium projectionist which today is used as a deli. Another were the
numerous side altars for the many Jesuits to celebrate their daily Mass. For twenty-five
years part of the third floor was used as a Jesuit residence - from 1957 until 1982
when the Jesuit superiors finally got around to building proper Jesuit housing. For
25 years the Jesuit Superior General in Rome had been advocating something like today's
Ignatius house, but intervening presidents never seemed to get his letters.
5. Alumni and Campion
Five of the pre-stressed arches of Alumni Hall
Next came Alumni Hall in 1959; it has been home for our two championship basketball
teams and offices for the athletic department which supervises 19 intercollegiate
and 8 club sports. On the floor of Alumni Hall we find one of the Bellarmine seals.
Alumni Hall is one of the earliest pre-stressed concrete structures of this kind ever attempted.
1959 engineering magazines related that the eleven 160-foot pre-cast arches used
involved a record span for arch ribs pre-cast in the U.S.
The life of Edmund Campion in stone
About this time there was need for further housing, partly due to the sudden increase
in applications of 1963 when Fr. Donald Lynch and his Four Fairfield University scholars
put Fairfield on the map by their brilliant performance on National TV in the College Bowl. Bridgeport's mayor decreed a day to honor them.
So in 1964 another residence
hall was built for 280 students called Campion Hall. Edmund Campion died in 1581
after being "hanged, drawn and quartered under the persecution of Good Queen Bess."
On the west wall is a 10 ton slab depicting the life of Campion, Oxford Scholar,
writing Campion's Brag: his defiant defense of his Catholic Faith and his martyrdom
in which he promises Queen Elizabeth that she is fighting a battle she will lose:
whenever she would kill one Jesuit, several more would arrive. "It is of God . . . it cannot
be withstood". Some of the first Fairfield women lived in Campion.
There seemed to be no end to Fairfield's growth.
The next installment of this story concerns
Fairfield University's Growth from 1965-1995
The story of these buildings, told in four instalments, is taken from the book If These Stones Could Speak
Fairfield University's Early Struggles
Fairfield University's Growth from 1945-1965
Fairfield University's Growth from 1965-1995
Why are Fairfield University's Buildings named after Dead Jesuits?