Fairfield University the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. In 1941, Rev. James H. Dolan, S.J., Provincial for the New England Province of the Society of Jesus, received written permission from Bishop Maurice F. McAuliffe of the Hartford Archdiocese to establish a Jesuit high school and college in the southwestern area of Connecticut. Fairfield University was officially founded in 1942 when the Jesuits acquired the two contiguous estates of the Brewster Jennings and Walter Lashar families. Upon its founding, it became the 26th Jesuit college/university in the United States. In the same year, Rev. James H. Dolan, S.J. appointed the Rev.
Commencement at Central Connecticut State University in 1936, in the college's amphitheater. The arrangement of an outdoor ceremony—held indoors in case of rain—continued until the 1990s. Over time, the location of the outdoor exercises included the college quadrangle and first of two athletics fields known as "Arute field." By the late 1940s, a building named "Memorial Hall" was used for those commencement exercises moved indoors because of rain, such as the 1955 event. In 1959, the college, which had been renamed "Teachers College of Connecticut" in 1933, became "Central Connecticut State College". When it rained on the day of the 1963 graduation, the ceremonies were moved