Beloved Fairfield Professor is Remembered

The Fairfield community was hit hard last week with the death of Professor Robert Bolger. Bolger was a member of Fairfield’s first graduating class in 1951. He returned to the university in September of 1954 after completing graduate school and joined the faculty, teaching in the Mathematics and Computer Sciences Department. He retired in May 2005. A mass of resurrection was held on December 2 at the Egan Chapel of St. Ignatius Loyola. Many faculty members who remember working closely with Bolger attended. His daughter Mary spoke at the funeral, sharing stories about her father. Irene Mulvey, a professor in the Mathematics department, recalls her first meeting with Bolger in 1985, when she discovered that he was an avid chess player.

“My first impression of him was that he was an intelligent, articulate, gentle man who would be a pleasure to work with,” she said. According to Mulvey, Bolger was in love with Fairfield, and once expressed his desire to spend his entire life here. As Mulvey pointed out, he did, first as a student and later as a professor. Ben Fine, also a math professor, remembers “Bob” in a special way, through an interaction between Bolger and his children. After Fine bought a pool table, one of his sons challenged Bolger to a game. “Bob ran off thirty or forty balls in a row and my son’s jaw dropped; he still talks about it,” Fine said. Certainly, Bolger will be remembered by all those who knew him. As a person of many firsts at Fairfield; first graduating class, first person to register for classes, first to teach at Fairfield for 50 years, according to Mulvey, he has left his legacy here at Fairfield.