NAICU Board of Directors Welcomes Fairfield University President Jeffrey P. von Arx, S.J. | Press Releases

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (December 16, 2016) — The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) has elected Fairfield University President Jeffrey von Arx, S.J. to its Board of Directors. In conjunction with the NAICU Annual Meeting, Fr. von Arx will begin to serve his three-year term on Tuesday, February 2, 2016, when the current board will ratify his election and members take office.

Since 1976, NAICU has served as the unified national voice of private nonprofit higher education. Their goal is to represent associated universities on policy issues with the federal government including those affecting student aid, taxation and government regulation. The NAICU board oversees seven committees responsible for identifying issues affecting independent higher education, enhancing public understanding of and support for independent higher education, setting the organization’s policy on student aid and federal funding, and examining all options available to students for financing their college educations.

NAICU reflects the diversity of American private, nonprofit higher education with more than 1,000 members nationwide. Members include including traditional liberal arts colleges, major research universities, church- and faith-related institutions, historically black colleges and universities, women’s colleges, performing and visual arts institutions, two-year colleges and schools of law, medicine, engineering, business and other professions.

“NAICU has a critical role to play in defending and promoting the interests of independent colleges and universities and their students. At this important moment in the evolution of higher education, it is more essential that our institutions speak with a unified voice, particularly with regard to student aid and federal funding,” said Fr. von Arx. “I’m pleased to have been asked to serve on the board of NAICU and look forward to what we will be able to accomplish in the future.”

The Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx, S.J. became the eight President of Fairfield University in 2004. An historian by discipline, Fr. von Arx began his academic career at Georgetown University where he taught in the history department from 1982 until 1998, serving as the chair of the department from 1991 to 1997, and where he was the founder and director of Georgetown’s Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies in the School of Foreign Service. He then became the Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill from 1998 until his appointment to Fairfield.

Fr. von Arx graduated from Princeton University in 1969, and entered the Society of Jesus that summer. He went on to receive an M.A. and M.Phil in history from Yale University, and completed his Ph.D there in 1980. In 1981, Fr. von Arx received an M.Div. from Weston School of Theology and was ordained a priest. A noted scholar and historian, Fr. von Arx is the author of numerous articles as well as the books Progress and Pessimism: Religion, Politics and History in Late Nineteenth-Century Britain (Harvard University Press, 1985) and Varieties of Ultramontanism (Catholic University Press, 1998)

Fr. von Arx has served on the boards of trustees of Boston College, Canisius College, Loyola Marymount University, and Xavier University, as well as Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). He was appointed to the Fairfield Board in 2002 and as president, continues to serve as a trustee.

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Vol. 48, No. 68

Fairfield University is a Jesuit University, rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students from 36 states, 47 foreign countries, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are enrolled in the University’s five schools. In the spirit of rigorous and sympathetic inquiry into all dimensions of human experience, Fairfield welcomes students from diverse backgrounds to share ideas and engage in open conversations. The University is located in the heart of a region where the future takes shape, on a stunning campus on the Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City.