“Who is APK?”
Last week many students were muttering that to their friends as they made their way up the stairs of the Barone Campus Center. Several Mirror staffers witnessed this, and we could not believe our ears. Honestly, how could someone not know the initials of Aloysius P. Kelley?
Then again, why should we expect our students to know these initials? Could many students say that they constantly see this man, in the trenches, hobnobbing with students?
Earlier this year, when the Fairfield University Student Association announced that Father Kelley would be appearing at an Open Forum, The Mirror was ecstatic. We applauded the notion that our university president would finally appear in a public forum specifically for students. Yet, our staff was excited only because our president hardly ever opens himself up to the student body. Perhaps we should have been looking at the bigger picture and larger problem: Fairfield University’s president is neither accessible nor visible to students. At such a small school, this problem needs to be addressed and rectified.
We realize that Father Kelley is a busy man. We know he has a lot to do everyday. At the open forum, Kelley had this to say about his average day: “I deal with a lot of mail and e-mail, deal with things in the office, but I actually spend a lot of time off campus.” Would it be so awful to request that once a week the university president block 30 minutes out of his schedule to walk through the campus center? Would it kill him to slum for lunch one day and eat at Barone?
It was readily apparent that two groups had come out for the president’s open forum this past week. There were the jilted athletes and the loyal FUSA members eager to support one of their events. The poor attendance is probably indicative of a larger problem. Our university president is so removed from the student body that not many students are interested in hearing this man’s thoughts.
Flipping through the spring issue of Fairfield Now, there are several references to our president: Cutting the ribbon at the new science center, sharing a laugh with former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, and attending a posh alumni dinner in New York. It seems like our university president is spending far too much time in the golden ghettos of the Fairfield elite.
Sure, we would all like to attend fancy dinners and laugh with celebrities from time to time.
But we would also like to see APK sometime between our first day and commencement too.
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