Fairfield University - Manor Yearbook (Fairfield, CT)

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XAVIER HALL Q

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On Iuly 15, 1942, the olllcial Hag-raising ceremony was held. The Reverend lohn lVlcF,leney, the first Rector of the College Preparatory School, together with the first faculty of eighteen Iesuit fathers and the prospective students and their parents. attended. Iennings Castle was renamed McAuliffe Hall and be- came the Hrst classroom building of the Preparatory School. The forty-room manor of the Lashar Estate, Hearthstone Hall, was made ready to serve as the residence of the Iesuit faculty with the new name of Bellarmine Hall. The inaugural graduation exercises with a class of nine took place on Iune 16, 1943, on the south terrace of Bellarmine Hall. From this small begin- ning the growth of the Preparatory School has spiralled with a constantly in- creasing student body and faculty. And as the Preparatory School matured, the Reverend Iames H. Dolan, in 1944, came to Fairfield as Rector with plans for a full-scale university. Blueprints and dreams now materialized into excavation and construction, electricians and carpenters classrooms and laboratories. First Berchmans Hall and then Xavier Hall appeared on the new campus overlooking Long Island Sound. In March, 1947, the Reverend Laurence C. Langguth was appointed Dean of Freshman and the acceptance of candidates for admission was begun. In October of that same year, the culmination of the years of planning and prepara- tion was reached when the first class of Fairfield University began its formal studies and the first Catholic University in Connecticut became a reality. i C,13C

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