Honorable Maryanne Trump Barry Donates $4M in honor of Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx, S.J., President of Fairfield University | Press Releases

Gift benefits Student Scholarships and the Center for Ignatian Spirituality

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (Sept. 14, 2016) — Fairfield University announced today that a $4M gift in honor of Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx, S. J., the President of Fairfield, has been made by long-time University supporter and 2011 honorary degree recipient, the Honorable Maryanne Trump Barry, Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The gift will fund scholarships to enable deserving young people to pursue an education at Fairfield, and will permanently endow Fairfield’s Center for Ignatian Spirituality.

Judge Barry, a strong advocate of Jesuit education, has made this gift to express gratitude to Father von Arx for all that he has accomplished during his twelve years as President. Father von Arx will be leaving Fairfield at the end of 2016 to become Superior of the Jesuit community at Lafarge House in Cambridge, Mass.

“I am sad for this loss to Fairfield,” said Judge Barry, “and pray for the continuation of the Jesuit mission and the Jesuit identity, which Father von Arx has not only preserved, but has so successfully championed over these twelve years.”

“My gifts to causes in which I believe,” she continued, “have almost always been anonymous. I make a rare exception here because I have been so moved by the difference that Father von Arx and his presidency have made in so many ways in the lives of so many young people, and because I believe that, in founding the Center for Ignatian Spirituality in 2014, Father von Arx has assured that Ignatian spirituality will guide those at Fairfield, and even worldwide, who seek the gift it so uniquely can provide, while it continues to inform and influence the environment of learning at Fairfield.”

“I am truly honored and humbled by Judge Barry’s gift,” said Father von Arx. “The scholarships make possible the dreams of many worthy young men and women, and the Center will help meet the needs of today’s world, while renewing the formative prayer tradition at the heart of the mission of the Society of Jesus; indeed, the mission of the Center is to provide spiritual direction to the community, and to train spiritual directors – both lay and religious – in the tradition of Ignatian prayer.” For more information on the Center, please visit fairfield.edu/CIS.

#Vol. 49 No. 26

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.