In late July, I and a number of Fairfield colleagues gathered in Chicago with presidents, administrators, faculty, and staff members from peer institutions in the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) to discuss ways to advance the Society’s work of faith, justice, and reconciliation.
Returning to Chicago, I found myself reflecting on the past seven years since I joined Fairfield from the University of Chicago. The late Robert Zimmer, president during my deanship there, often stressed the need for higher education institutions to think strategically in seven-year arcs. For student-centric Fairfield, this is particularly true. Typically, our first-year students look to the senior class for guidance and our seniors take special care to support the first-years — making the length and breadth of a typical student’s touchpoints seven years.
Looking forward to our next seven years and beyond, we will continue to focus on quality and scale, dedicated to forming young persons of integrity to go into the world and change it for the better.
Drawn by this purpose, the Class of 2028 is our largest ever with just over 1,450 students. With an acceptance rate of 33 percent, it is also our most competitive class, aligning us with a new group of national peers and ranking us among the six most selective Catholic universities nationwide. The average high school weighted GPA of the new class stands at an impressive 3.96, up from last year’s 3.85.
